Chapter 3

THE PEOPLE OF AL-MADINAH.

AL-MADINAH contains but few families descended from the Prophet’s Auxiliaries. I heard only of four whose genealogy is undoubted. These were,—

1. The Bayt al-Ansari, or descendants of Abu Ayyub, a most noble race whose tree ramifies through a space of fifteen hundred years. They keep the keys of the Kuba Mosque, and are Imams in the Harim, but the family is no longer wealthy or powerful.

2. The Bayt Abu Jud: they supply the Harim with Imams and Mu’ezzins.[FN#l] I was told that there are now but two surviving members of this family, a boy and a girl.

3. The Bayt al-Sha’ab, a numerous race. Some of the members travel professionally, others trade, and others are employed in the Harim.

4. The Bayt al-Karrani, who are mostly engaged in commerce.

There is also a race called Al-Nakhawilah,[FN#2] who,

[p.2]according to some, are descendants of the Ansar, whilst others derive them from Yazid, the son of Mu’awiyah: the latter opinion is improbable, as the Caliph in question was a mortal foe to Ali’s family, which is inordinately venerated by these people. As far as I could ascertain, they abuse the Shaykhayn (Abu Bakr and Omar): all my informants agreed upon this point, but none could tell me why they neglected to bedevil Osman, the third object of hatred to the Shi’ah persuasion. They are numerous and warlike, yet they are despised by the townspeople, because they openly profess heresy, and are moreover of humble degree. They have their own priests and instructors, although subject to the orthodox Kazi; marry in their own sect, are confined to low offices, such as slaughtering animals, sweeping, and gardening, and are not allowed to enter the Harim during life, or to be carried to it after death. Their corpses are taken down an outer street called the Darb al-Janazah—Road of Biers—to their own cemetery near Al-Bakia. They dress and speak Arabic, like the townspeople; but the Arabs pretend to distinguish them by a peculiar look denoting their degradation: it is doubtless the mistake of effect for cause, about all such

“Tribes of the wandering foot and weary breast.” number of reports are current about the horrid

[p.3]customs of these people, and their community of women[FN#3] with the Persian pilgrims who pass through the town. It need scarcely be said that such tales coming from the mouths of fanatic foes are not to be credited. I regret not having had an opportunity to become intimate with any of the Nakhawilah, from whom curious information might be elicited. Orthodox Moslems do not like to be questioned about such hateful subjects; when I attempted to learn something from one of my acquaintance, Shaykh Ula al-Din, of a Kurd family, settled at Al-Madinah, a man who had travelled over the East, and who spoke five languages to perfection, he coldly replied that he had never consorted with these heretics. Sayyids and Sharifs,[FN#4] the descendants of the Prophet, here abound. The Benu Hosayn of Al-Madinah have their head-quarters at Suwayrkiyah:[FN#5] the former place contains six or seven families; the latter, ninety-three or ninety-four. Anciently they were much more numerous, and such was their power, that for centuries they retained charge of the Prophet’s tomb. They

[p.4]subsist principally upon their Amlak, property in land, for which they have title-deeds extending back to Mohammed’s day, and Aukaf, religious bequests; popular rumour accuses them of frequent murders for the sake of succession. At Al-Madinah they live chiefly at the Hosh Ibn Sa’ad, a settlement outside the town and south of the Darb al-Janazah. There is, however, no objection to their dwelling within the walls; and they are taken to the Harim after death, if there be no evil report against the individual. Their burial-place is the Bakia cemetery. The reason of this toleration is, that some are supposed to be Sunni, or orthodox, and even the most heretical keep their “Rafz[FN#6]” (heresy) a profound secret. Most learned Arabs believe that they belong, like the Persians, to the sect of Ali: the truth, however, is so vaguely known, that I could find out none of the peculiarities of their faith, till I met a Shirazi friend at Bombay. The Benu Hosayn are spare dark men of Badawi appearance, and they dress in the old Arab style still affected by the Sharifs,—a Kufiyah (kerchief) on the head,[FN#7] and a Banish, a long and wide-sleeved garment resembling our magicians’ gown, thrown over the white cotton Kamis (shirt): in public they always carry swords, even when others leave weapons at home. There are about two hundred families of Sayyid Alawiyah,—descendants of Ali by any of his wives but Fatimah, they bear no distinctive mark in dress or appearance, and are either employed at the

[p.5]temple or engage at trade. Of the Khalifiyah, or descendants of Abbas, there is, I am told, but one household, the Bayt Al-Khalifah, who act as Imams in the Harim, and have charge of Hamzah’s tomb. Some declare that there are a few of the Siddikiyah, or descendants from Abu Bakr; others ignore them, and none could give me any information about the Benu Najjar.

The rest of the population of Al-Madinah is a motley race composed of offshoots from every nation in Al-Islam. The sanctity of the city attracts strangers, who, purposing to stay but a short time, become residents; after finding some employment, they marry, have families, die, and are buried there with an eye to the spiritual advantages of the place. I was much importuned to stay at Al-Madinah. The only known physician was one Shaykh Abdullah Sahib, an Indian, a learned man, but of so melancholic a temperament, and so ascetic in his habits, that his knowledge was entirely lost to the public. “Why dost thou not,” said my friends, “hire a shop somewhere near the Prophet’s Mosque? There thou wilt eat bread by thy skill, and thy soul will have the blessing of being on holy ground.” Shaykh Nur also opined after a short residence at Al-Madinah that it was bara jannati Shahr, a “very heavenly City,” and little would have induced him to make it his home. The present ruling race at Al-Madinah, in consequence of political vicissitudes, is the “Sufat,[FN#8]” sons of Turkish fathers by Arab mothers. These half-castes are now numerous, and have managed to secure the highest and most lucrative offices. Besides Turks, there are families originally from the Maghrib, Takruris, Egyptians in considerable numbers, settlers from Al-Yaman and other parts of Arabia, Syrians, Kurds, Afghans, Daghistanis from the Caucasus, and a few Jawis—Java Moslems. The Sindis, I was told, reckon about one hundred families, who are exceedingly despised for their

[p.6]cowardice and want of manliness, whilst the Baluch and the Afghan are respected. The Indians are not so numerous in proportion here as at Meccah; still Hindustani is by no means uncommonly heard in the streets. They preserve their peculiar costume, the women persisting in showing their faces, and in wearing tight, exceedingly tight, pantaloons. This, together with other reasons, secures for them the contempt of the Arabs. At Al-Madinah they are generally small shopkeepers, especially druggists and sellers of Kumash (cloth), and they form a society of their own. The terrible cases of misery and starvation which so commonly occur among the improvident Indians at Jeddah and Meccah are here rare.

The Hanafi school holds the first rank at Al-Madinah, as in most parts of Al-Islam, although many of the citizens, and almost all the Badawin, are Shafe’is. The reader will have remarked with astonishment that at one of the fountain-heads of the faith, there are several races of schismatics, the Benu Hosayn, the Benu Ali, and the Nakhawilah. At the town of Safra there are said to be a number of the Zuyud schismatics,[FN#9] who visit Al-Madinah, and have settled in force at Meccah, and some declare that the Bayazi sect[FN#10] also exists.

The citizens of Al-Madinah are a favoured race, although the city is not, like Meccah, the grand mart of the Moslem world or the meeting-place of nations. They pay no taxes, and reject the idea of a “Miri,” or land-cess, with extreme disdain. “Are we, the children of the Prophet,” they exclaim, “to support or to be supported?” The Wahhabis, not understanding the argument, taxed them,

[p.7]as was their wont, in specie and in materials, for which reason the very name of those Puritans is an abomination. As has before been shown, all the numerous attendants at the Mosque are paid partly by the Sultan, partly by Aukaf, the rents of houses and lands bequeathed to the shrine, and scattered over every part of the Moslem world. When a Madani is inclined to travel, he applies to the Mudir al-Harim, and receives from him a paper which entitles him to the receipt of a considerable sum at Constantinople. “The “Ikram” (honorarium), as it is called, varies with the rank of the recipient, the citizens being divided into these four orders, viz.

First and highest, the Sadat (Sayyids),[FN#11] and Ima[m]s, who are entitled to twelve purses, or about £60. Of these there are said to be three hundred families.

The Khanahdan, who keep open house and receive poor strangers gratis. Their Ikram amounts to eight purses, and they number from a hundred to a hundred and fifty families.

The Ahali[FN#12] (burghers) or Madani properly speaking, who have homes and families, and were born in Al-Madinah. They claim six purses.

The Mujawirin, strangers, as Egyptians or Indians, settled at, though not born in, Al-Madinah. Their honorarium is four purses.

The Madani traveller, on arrival at Constantinople, reports his arrival to his Consul, the Wakil al-Haramayn. This “Agent of the two Holy Places” applies to the Nazir al-Aukaf, or “Intendant of Bequests”; the latter,

[p.8]after transmitting the demand to the different officers of the treasury, sends the money to the Wakil, who delivers it to the applicant. This gift is sometimes squandered in pleasure, more often profitably invested either in merchandise or in articles of home-use, presents of dress and jewellery for the women, handsome arms, especially pistols and Balas[FN#13] (yataghans), silk tassels, amber pipe-pieces, slippers, and embroidered purses. They are packed up in one or two large Sahharahs, and then commences the labour of returning home gratis. Besides the Ikram, most of the Madani, when upon these begging trips, are received as guests by great men at Constantinople. The citizens whose turn it is not to travel, await the Aukaf and Sadakat (bequests and alms),[FN#14] forwarded every year by the Damascus Caravan; besides which, as has been before explained, the Harim supplies even those not officially employed in it with many perquisites.

Without these advantages Al-Madinah would soon be abandoned to cultivators and Badawin. Though commerce is here honourable, as everywhere in the East, business is “slack,[FN#15]” because the higher classes prefer the idleness of administering their landed estates, and being servants to the Mosque. I heard of only four respectable houses, Al-Isawi, Al-Sha’ab, Abd al-Jawwad, and a family from Al-Shark (the Eastern Region).[FN#16] They all deal in grain, cloth, and provisions, and perhaps the richest have a capital of twenty thousand dollars. Caravans in

[p.9]the cold weather are constantly passing between Al-Madinah and Egypt, but they are rather bodies of visitors to Constantinople than traders travelling for gain. Corn is brought from Jeddah by land, and imported into Yambu’ or via Al-Rais, a port on the Red Sea, one day and a half’s journey from Safra. There is an active provision trade with the neighbouring Badawin, and the Syrian Hajj supplies the citizens with apparel and articles of luxury—tobacco, dried fruits, sweetmeats, knives, and all that is included under the word “notions.” There are few store-keepers, and their dealings are petty, because articles of every kind are brought from Egypt, Syria, and Constantinople. As a general rule, labour is exceedingly expensive,[FN#17] and at the Visitation time a man will demand fifteen or twenty piastres from a stranger for such a trifling job as mending an umbrella. Handicraftsmen and artisans—carpenters, masons, locksmiths, potters, and others—are either slaves or foreigners, mostly Egyptians.[FN#18] This proceeds partly from the pride of the people. They are taught from their childhood that the Madani is a favoured being, to be respected however vile or schismatic; and that the vengeance of Allah will fall upon any one who ventures to abuse, much more to strike him.[FN#19] They receive a stranger at the shop window with the haughtiness of Pashas, and take pains to show him, by words as well as by looks, that they consider themselves as

[p.10]“good gentlemen as the king, only not so rich.” Added to this pride are indolence, and the true Arab prejudice, which, even in the present day, prevents a Badawi from marrying the daughter of an artisan. Like Castilians, they consider labour humiliating to any but a slave; nor is this, as a clever French author remarks, by any means an unreasonable idea, since Heaven, to punish man for disobedience, caused him to eat daily bread by the sweat of his brow. Besides, there is degradation, moral and physical, in handiwork compared with the freedom of the Desert. The loom and the file do not conserve courtesy and chivalry like the sword and spear; man “extends his tongue,” to use an Arab phrase, when a cuff and not a stab is to be the consequence of an injurious expression. Even the ruffian becomes polite in California, where his brother-ruffian carries his revolver, and those European nations who were most polished when every gentleman wore a rapier, have become the rudest since Civilisation disarmed them.

By the tariff quoted below it will be evident that Al-Madinah is not a cheap place.[FN#20] Yet the citizens,

[p.11]despite their being generally in debt, manage to live well. Their cookery, like that of Meccah, has borrowed something from Egypt, Turkey, Syria, Persia, and India: as all Orientals, they are exceedingly fond of clarified butter.[FN#21]

[p.12]I have seen the boy Mohammed drink off nearly a tumbler-full, although his friends warned him that it would make him as fat as an elephant. When a man cannot enjoy clarified butter in these countries, it is considered a sign that his stomach is out of order, and all my excuses of a melancholic temperament were required to be in full play to prevent the infliction of fried meat swimming in grease, or that guest-dish,[FN#22] rice saturated with melted—perhaps I should say—rancid butter. The “Samn” of Al-Hijaz, however, is often fresh, being brought in by the Badawin; it has not therefore the foul flavour derived from the old and impregnated skin-bag which distinguishes the “ghi” of India.[FN#23] The house of a Madani in good circumstances is comfortable, for the building is substantial, and the attendance respectable. Black slave-girls here perform the complicated duties of servant-maids in England; they are taught to sew, to cook, and to wash, besides sweeping the house and drawing water for domestic use. Hasinah (the “Charmer,” a decided misnomer) costs from $40 to $50; if she be a mother, her value is less; but neat-handedness, propriety of demeanour, and skill in feminine accomplishments, raise her to $100=£25. A little black boy, perfect in all his points, and tolerably intelligent, costs about a thousand piastres; girls are dearer, and eunuchs fetch double that sum. The older the children become, the

[p.13]more their value diminishes; and no one would purchase[,] save under exceptional circumstances, an adult slave, because he is never parted with but for some incurable vice. The Abyssinian, mostly Galla, girls, so much prized because their skins are always cool in the hottest weather, are here rare; they seldom sell for less than £20, and they often fetch £60. I never heard of a Jariyah Bayza, a white slave girl, being in the market at Al-Madinah: in Circassia they fetch from £100 to £400 prime cost, and few men in Al-Hijaz could afford so expensive a luxury. The Bazar at Al-Madinah is poor, and as almost all the slaves are brought from Meccah by the Jallabs, or drivers, after exporting the best to Egypt, the town receives only the refuse.[FN#24]

The personal appearance of the Madani makes the stranger wonder how this mongrel population of settlers has acquired a peculiar and almost an Arab physiognomy. They are remarkably fair, the effect of a cold climate; sometimes the cheeks are lighted up with red, and the hair is a dark chestnut—at Al-Madinah I was not stared at as a white man. The cheeks and different parts of the children’s bodies are sometimes marked with Mashali or Tashrih, not the three long stripes of the Meccans,[FN#25] but little scars generally in threes. In some points they approach very near the true Arab type, that is to say, the Badawi of ancient and noble family. The cheek-bones are high and saillant, the eye small, more round than long,

[p.14] piercing, fiery, deep-set, and brown rather than black. The head is small, the ears well-cut, the face long and oval, though not unfrequently disfigured by what is popularly called the “lantern-jaw”; the forehead high, bony, broad, and slightly retreating, and the beard and mustachios scanty, consisting of two tufts upon the chin, with, generally speaking, little or no whisker. These are the points of resemblance between the city and the country Arab. The difference is equally remarkable. The temperament of the Madani is not purely nervous, like that of the Badawi, but admits a large admixture of the bilious, and, though rarely, the lymphatic. The cheeks are fuller, the jaws project more than in the pure race, the lips are more fleshy, more sensual and ill-fitting; the features are broader, and the limbs are stouter and more bony. The beard is a little thicker, and the young Arabs of the towns are beginning to imitate the Turks in that abomination to their ancestors—shaving. Personal vanity, always a ruling passion among Orientals, and a hopeless wish to emulate the flowing beards of the Turks and the Persians—perhaps the only nations in the world who ought not to shave the chin—have overruled even the religious objections to such innovation. I was more frequently appealed to at Al-Madinah than anywhere else, for some means of removing the opprobrium “Kusah,” or scant-bearded man. They blacken the beard with gall-nuts, henna, and other preparations, especially the Egyptian mixture, composed of sulphate of iron one part, ammoniure of iron one part, and gall-nuts two parts, infused in eight parts of distilled water. It is a very bad dye. Much refinement of dress is now found at Al-Madinah,—Constantinople, the Paris of the East, supplying it with the newest fashions. Respectable men wear either a Benish or a Jubbah; the latter, as at Meccah, is generally of some light and flashy colour, gamboge, yellow, tender green, or bright pink.

[p.15]This is the sign of a “dressy” man. If you have a single coat, it should be of some modest colour, as a dark violet; to appear always in the same tender green, or bright pink, would excite derision. But the Hijazis, poor and rich, always prefer these tulip tints. The proper Badan, or long coat without sleeves, still worn in truly Arab countries, is here confined to the lowest classes. That ugliest of head-dresses, the red Tunisian cap, called “Tarbush,[FN#26]” is much used, only the Arabs have too much regard for their eyes and faces to wear it, as the Turks do, without a turband. It is with regret that one sees the most graceful head-gear imaginable, the Kufiyah and the Aakal, proscribed except amongst the Sharifs and the Badawin. The women dress, like the men, handsomely. Indoors they wear, I am told, a Sudayriyah, or boddice of calico and other stuffs, like the Choli of India, which supports the bosom without the evils of European stays. Over this is a Saub, or white shirt, of the white stuff called Halaili or Burunjuk, with enormous sleeves, and flowing down to the feet; the Sarwal or pantaloons are not wide, like the Egyptians’, but rather tight, approaching to the Indian cut, without its exaggeration.[FN#27] Abroad, they throw over the head a silk or a cotton Milayah, generally chequered white and blue. The Burka (face-veil), all over Al-Hijaz is white, a decided improvement in point of cleanliness upon that of Egypt. Women of all ranks die the soles of the feet and the palms of the hands black; and trace thin lines down the inside of the

[p.16]fingers, by first applying a plaster of henna and then a mixture, called “Shadar,” of gall-nuts, alum, and lime. The hair[,] parted in the centre, is plaited into about twenty little twists called Jadilah.[FN#28] Of ornaments, as usual among Orientals, they have a vast variety, ranging from brass and spangles to gold and precious stones; and they delight in strong perfumes, musk, civet, ambergris, attar of rose, oil of jasmine, aloe-wood, and extract of cinnamon. Both sexes wear Constantinople slippers. The women draw on Khuff, inner slippers, of bright yellow leather, serving for socks, and covering the ankle, with Papush of the same material, sometimes lined with velvet and embroidered with a gold sprig under the hollow of the foot. In mourning the men show no difference of dress, like good Moslems, to whom such display of grief is forbidden. But the women, who cannot dissociate the heart and the toilette, evince their sorrow by wearing white clothes and by doffing their ornaments. This is a modern custom: the accurate Burckhardt informs us that in his day the women of Al-Madinah did not wear mourning.

The Madani generally appear abroad on foot. Few animals are kept here, on account, I suppose, of the expense of feeding them. The Cavalry are mounted on poor Egyptian nags. The horses generally ridden by rich men are generally Nijdi, costing from $200 to $300. Camels are numerous, but those bred in Al-Hijaz are small, weak, and consequently little prized. Dromedaries of good breed, called Ahrar[FN#29] (the noble) and Namani, from the place of that name, are to be had for any sum between $10 and $400; they are diminutive, but exceedingly swift, surefooted, sagacious, thoroughbred, with eyes like the

[p.17]antelope’s, and muzzles that would almost enter a tumbler. Mules are not found at Al-Madinah, although popular prejudice does not now forbid the people to mount them. Asses come from Egypt and Meccah: I am told that some good animals are to be found in the town, and that certain ignoble Badawi clans have a fine breed, but I never saw any. Of beasts intended for food, the sheep is the only common one in this part of Al-Hijaz. There are three distinct breeds. The larger animal comes from Nijd and the Anizah Badawin, who drive a flourishing trade; the smaller is a native of the country. Both are the common Arab species, of a tawny colour, with a long fat tail. Occasionally one meets with what at Aden is called the Berberah sheep, a totally different beast,—white, with a black broad face, a dew-lap, and a short fat tail, that looks as if twisted up into a knot: it was doubtless introduced by the Persians. Cows are rare at Al-Madinah. Beef throughout the East is considered an unwholesome food, and the Badawi will not drink cow’s milk, preferring that of the camel, the ewe, and the goat. The flesh of the latter animal is scarcely ever eaten in the city, except by the poorest classes.

The manners of the Madani are graver and somewhat more pompous than those of any Arabs with whom I ever mixed. This they appear to have borrowed from their rulers, the Turks. But their austerity and ceremoniousness are skin-deep. In intimacy or in anger the garb of politeness is thrown off, and the screaming Arab voice, the voluble, copious, and emphatic abuse, and the mania for gesticulation, return in all their deformity. They are great talkers as the following little trait shows. When a man is opposed to more than his match in disputing or bargaining, instead of patiently saying to himself, S’il crache il est mort, he interrupts the adversary with a Sall’ ala Mohammed,—Bless the Prophet. Every good Moslem is obliged to obey such requisition by responding, Allahumma

[p.18] salli alayh,—O Allah bless him! But the Madani curtails the phrase to “A’n,[FN#30]” supposing it to be an equivalent, and proceeds in his loquacity. Then perhaps the baffled opponent will shout out Wahhid, i.e., “Attest the unity of the Deity”; when, instead of employing the usual religious phrases to assert that dogma, he will briefly ejaculate “Al,” and hurry on with the course of conversation. As it may be supposed, these wars of words frequently end in violent quarrels; for, to do the Madani justice, they are always ready to fight. The desperate old feud between the “Juwwa,” and the “Barra,”—the town and the suburbs—has been put down with the greatest difficulty. The boys, indeed, still keep it up, turning out in bodies and making determined onslaughts with sticks and stones.[FN#31]

It is not to be believed that in a town garrisoned by Turkish troops, full of travelled traders, and which supports itself by plundering Hajis, the primitive virtues of the Arab could exist. The Meccans, a dark people, say of the Madani, that their hearts are black as their skins are white.[FN#32] This is, of course, exaggerated; but it is not too

[p.19] much to assert that pride, pugnacity, a peculiar point of honour and a vindictiveness of wonderful force and patience, are the only characteristic traits of Arab character which the citizens of Al-Madinah habitually display. Here you meet with scant remains of the chivalry of the Desert. A man will abuse his guest, even though he will not dine without him, and would protect him bravely against an enemy. And words often pass lightly between individuals which suffice to cause a blood feud amongst Badawin. The outward appearance of decorum is conspicuous amongst the Madani. There are no places where Corinthians dwell, as at Meccah, Cairo, and Jeddah. Adultery, if detected, would be punished by lapidation according to the rigour of the Koranic law[FN#33]; and simple immorality by religious stripes, or, if of repeated occurrence, by expulsion from the city. But scandals seldom occur, and the women, I am told, behave with great decency.[FN#34] Abroad, they have the usual Moslem

[p.20]pleasures of marriage, lyings-in, circumcision feasts, holy isitations, and funerals. At home, they employ themselves with domestic matters, and especially in scolding “Hasinah” and “Za’afaran.” In this occupation they surpass even the notable English housekeeper of the middle orders of society—the latter being confined to “knagging” at her slavey, whereas the Arab lady is allowed an unbounded extent of vocabulary. At Shaykh Hamid’s house, however, I cannot accuse the women of

“Swearing into strong shudders The immortal gods who heard them.”

They abused the black girls with unction, but without any violent expletives. At Meccah, however, the old lady in whose house I was living would, when excited by the melancholy temperament of her eldest son and his irregular hours of eating, scold him in the grossest terms, not unfrequently ridiculous in the extreme. For instance, one of her assertions was that he—the son—was the offspring of an immoral mother; which assertion, one might suppose, reflected not indirectly upon herself. So in Egypt I have frequently heard a father, when reproving his boy, address him by “O dog, son of a dog!” and “O spawn of an Infidel—of a Jew—of a Christian!” Amongst the men of Al-Madinah I remarked a considerable share of hypocrisy. Their mouths were as full of religious salutations, exclamations, and hackneyed quotations from the Koran, as of indecency and vile abuse—a point in which they resemble the Persians. As before

[p.21] observed, they preserve their reputation as the sons of a holy city by praying only in public. At Constantinople they are by no means remarkable for sobriety. Intoxicating liquors, especially Araki, are made in Al-Madinah, only by the Turks: the citizens seldom indulge in this way at home, as detection by smell is imminent among a people of water-bibbers. During the whole time of my stay I had to content myself with a single bottle of Cognac, coloured and scented to resemble medicine. The Madani are, like the Meccans, a curious mixture of generosity and meanness, of profuseness and penuriousness. But the former quality is the result of ostentation, the latter is a characteristic of the Semitic race, long ago made familiar to Europe by the Jew. The citizens will run deeply in debt, expecting a good season of devotees to pay off their liabilities, or relying upon the next begging trip to Turkey; and such a proceeding, contrary to the custom of the Moslem world, is not condemned by public opinion. Above all their qualities, personal conceit is remarkable: they show it in their strut, in their looks, and almost in every word. “I am such an one, the son of such an one,” is a common expletive, especially in times of danger; and this spirit is not wholly to be condemned, as it certainly acts as an incentive to gallant actions. But it often excites them to vie with one another in expensive entertainments and similar vanities. The expression, so offensive to English ears, Inshallah Bukra—Please God, tomorrow—always said about what should be done to-day, is here common as in Egypt or in India. This procrastination belongs more or less to all Orientals. But Arabia especially abounds in the Tawakkal al’ Allah, ya Shaykh!—Place thy reliance upon Allah, O Shaykh!—enjoined when a man should depend upon his own exertions. Upon the whole, however, though alive to the infirmities of the Madani character, I thought favourably of it, finding among this people more of the redeeming point, manliness,

[p.22]than in most Eastern nations with whom I am acquainted.

The Arabs, like the Egyptians, all marry. Yet, as usual, they are hard and facetious upon that ill-treated subject—matrimony. It has exercised the brain of their wits and sages, who have not failed to indite notable things concerning it. Saith “Harikar al-Hakim” [(]Dominie Do-All) to his nephew Nadan (Sir Witless), whom he would dissuade from taking to himself a wife, “Marriage is joy for a month and sorrow for a life, and the paying of settlements and the breaking of back (i.e. under the load of misery), and the listening to a woman's tongue!” And again we have in verse:—

“They said ‘marry!’ I replied, ‘far be it from me To take to my bosom a sackful of snakes. I am free—why then become a slave? May Allah never bless womankind!’”

And the following lines are generally quoted, as affording a kind of bird’s-eye view of female existence:—

“From 10 (years of age) unto 20, A repose to the eyes of beholders.[FN#35] From 20 unto 30, Still fair and full of flesh. From 30 unto 40, A mother of many boys and girls. From 40 unto 50, An old woman of the deceitful. From 50 unto 60, Slay her with a knife. From 60 unto 70, The curse of Allah upon them, one and all!”

Another popular couplet makes a most unsupported assertion:—

“They declare womankind to be heaven to man, I say, ‘Allah, give me Jahannam, and not this heaven.’”

Yet the fair sex has the laugh on its side, for these railers at Al-Madinah as at other places, invariably marry. The

[p.23]marriage ceremony is tedious and expensive. It begins with a Khitbah or betrothal: the father of the young man repairs to the parent or guardian of the girl, and at the end of his visit exclaims, “The Fatihah! we beg of your kindness your daughter for our son.” Should the other be favourable to the proposal, his reply is, “Welcome and congratulation to you: but we must perform Istikharah[FN#36] (religious lot casting)”; and, when consent is given, both pledge themselves to the agreement by reciting the Fatihah. Then commence negotiations about the Mahr or sum settled upon the bride[FN#37]; and after the smoothing of this difficulty follow feastings of friends and relatives, male and female. The marriage itself is called Akd al-Nikah or Ziwaj. A Walimah or banquet is prepared by the father of the Aris (groom), at his own house, and the Kazi attends to perform the nuptial ceremony, the girl’s consent being obtained through her Wakil, any male relation whom she commissions to act for her. Then, with great pomp and circumstance, the Aris visits his Arusah (bride) at her father’s house; and finally, with a Zuffah or procession and sundry ceremonies at the Harim, she is brought to her new home. Arab funerals are as simple as their marriages are complicated. Neither Naddabah (myriologist or hired keener), nor indeed any female, even a relation, is present at burials as in other parts of the Moslem world,[FN#38] and it is esteemed disgraceful

[p.24]for a man to weep aloud. The Prophet, ho doubtless had heard of those pagan mournings, where an effeminate and unlimited display of woe was often terminated by licentious excesses, like the Christian’s half-heathen “wakes,” forbad [a]ught beyond a decent demonstration of grief. And his strong good sense enabled him to see through the vanity of professional mourners. At Al-Madinah the corpse is interred shortly after decease. The bier is carried though the streets at a moderate pace, by friends and relatives,[FN#39] these bringing up the rear. Every man who passes lends his shoulder for a minute, a mark of respect to the dead, and also considered a pious and a prayerful act. Arrived at the Harim, they carry the corpse in visitation to the Prophet’s window, and pray over it at Osman’s niche. Finally, it is interred after the usual Moslem fashion in the cemetery Al-Bakia.

Al-Madinah, though pillaged by the Wahhabis, still abounds in books. Near the Harim are two Madrasah or colleges, the Mahmudiyah, so called from Sultan Mahmud, and that of Bashir Agha: both have large stores of theological and other works. I also heard of extensive private collections, particularly of one belonging to the Najib al-Ashraf, or chief of the Sharifs, a certain Mohammed Jamal al-Layl, whose father is well-known in India. Besides which, there is a large Wakf or bequest of books, presented to the Mosque or entailed upon particular families.[FN#40] The celebrated Mohammed Ibn Abdillah al-Sannusi[FN#41] has removed

[p.25] his collection, amounting, it is said, to eight thousand volumes, from Al-Madinah to his house in Jabal Kubays at Meccah. The burial-place of the Prophet, therefore, no longer lies open to the charge of utter ignorance brought against it by my predecessor.[FN#42] The people now praise their Olema for learning, and boast a superiority in respect of science over Meccah. Yet many students leave the place for Damascus and Cairo, where the Riwak al-Haramayn (College of the Two Shrines) in the Azhar Mosque University, is always crowded; and though Omar Effendi boasted to me that his city was full of lore, he did not appear the less anxious to attend the lectures of Egyptian professors. But none of my informants claimed for Al-Madinah any facilities of studying other than the purely religious sciences.[FN#43] Philosophy, medicine, arithmetic, mathematics, and algebra cannot be learnt here. I was careful to inquire about the occult sciences, remembering that Paracelsus had travelled in Arabia, and that the Count Cagliostro (Giuseppe Balsamo), who claimed the Meccan Sharif as his father, asserted that about A.D. 1765 he had studied alchemy at Al-Madinah. The only trace I could find was a superficial knowledge of the Magic Mirror. But after denying the Madani the praise of varied learning, it must be owned that their quick observation and retentive memories have stored up for

[p.26]them an abundance of superficial knowledge, culled from conversations in the market and in the camp. I found it impossible here to display those feats which in Sind, Southern Persia, Eastern Arabia, and many parts of India, would be looked upon as miraculous. Most probably one of the company had witnessed the performance of some Italian conjuror at Constantinople or Alexandria, and retained a lively recollection of every manœuvre. As linguists they are not equal to the Meccans, who surpass all Orientals excepting only the Armenians; the Madani seldom know Turkish, and more rarely still Persian and Indian. Those only who have studied in Egypt chaunt the Koran well. The citizens speak and pronounce[FN#44] their language purely; they are not equal to the people of the southern Hijaz, still their Arabic is refreshing after the horrors of Cairo and Maskat.

The classical Arabic, be it observed, in consequence of an extended empire, soon split up into various dialects, as the Latin under similar circumstances separated into the Neo-Roman patois of Italy, Sicily, Provence, and Languedoc. And though Niebuhr has been deservedly

[p.27]censured for comparing the Koranic language to Latin and the vulgar tongue to Italian, still there is a great difference between them, almost every word having undergone some alteration in addition to the manifold changes and simplifications of grammar and syntax. The traveller will hear in every part of Arabia that some distant tribe preserves the linguistic purity of its ancestors, uses final vowels with the noun, and rejects the addition of the pronoun which apocope in the verb now renders necessary.[FN#45] But I greatly doubt the existence of such a race of philologists. In Al-Hijaz, however, it is considered graceful in an old man, especially when conversing publicly, to lean towards classical Arabic. On the contrary, in a youth this would be treated as pedantic affectation, and condemned in some such satiric quotation as

“There are two things colder than ice, A young old man, and an old young man.”

[FN#1] Ibn Jubayr relates that in his day a descendant of Belal, the original Mu’ezzin of the Prophet, practised his ancestral profession at Al-Madinah. [FN#2] This word is said to be the plural of Nakhwali,—one who cultivates the date tree, a gardener or farmer. No one could tell me whether these heretics had not a peculiar name for themselves. I hazard a conjecture that they may be identical with the Mutawalli (also written Mutawilah, Mutaalis, Metoualis, &c., &c.), the hardy, courageous, and hospitable mountaineers of Syria, and Cœlesyria Proper. This race of sectarians, about 35,000 in number, holds to the Imamship or supreme pontificate of Ali and his descendants. They differ, however, in doctrine from the Persians, believing in a transmigration of the soul, which, gradually purified, is at last “orbed into a perfect star.” They are scrupulous of caste, and will not allow a Jew or a Frank to touch a piece of their furniture: yet they erect guest-houses for Infidels. In this they resemble the Shi’ahs, who are far more particular about ceremonial purity than the Sunnis. They use ablutions before each meal, and herein remind us of the Hindus. [FN#3] The communist principles of Mazdak the Persian (sixth century) have given his nation a permanent bad fame in this particular among the Arabs. [FN#4] In Arabia the Sharif is the descendant of Hasan through his two sons, Zaid and Hasan al-Musanna: the Sayyid is the descendant of Hosayn through Zayn al-Abidin, the sole of twelve children who survived the fatal field of Kerbela. The former devotes himself to government and war; the latter, to learning and religion. In Persia and India, the Sharif is the son of a Sayyid woman and a common Moslem. The Sayyid “Nejib al-Taraf” (noble on one side) is the son of a Sayyid father and a common Moslemah. The Sayyid “Nejib al-Tarafayn” (noble on both sides) is one whose parents are both Sayyids. [FN#5] Burckhardt alludes to this settlement when he says, “In the Eastern Desert, at three or four days’ journey from Medinah, lives a whole Bedouin tribe, called Beni Aly, who are all of this Persian creed.” I travelled to Suwayrkiyah, and found it inhabited by Benu Hosayn. The Benu Ali are Badawin settled at the Awali, near the Kuba Mosque: they were originally slaves of the great house of Auf, and are still heretical in their opinions. [FN#6] “Refusing, rejecting.” Hence the origin of Rafizi,—“a rejector, a heretic.” “Inna rafaznahum,”—“verily we have rejected them,” (Abu Bakr, Omar, and Osman,) exclaim the Persians, glorying in the opprobrious epithet. [FN#7] Sayyids in Al-Hijaz, as a general rule, do not denote their descent by the green turband. In fact, most of them wear a red Kashmir shawl round the head, when able to afford the luxury. The green turband is an innovation in Al-Islam. In some countries it is confined to the Sayyids; in others it is worn as a mark of distinction by pilgrims. Khudabakhsh, the Indian, at Cairo generally dressed in a tender green suit like a Mantis. [FN#8] Plural of Suftah—a half-caste Turk. [FN#9] Plural of Zaydi. These are well-known schismatics of the Shi’ah persuasion, who abound in Southern Arabia. [FN#10] The Bayazi sect flourishes near Maskat, whose Imam or Prince, it is said, belongs to the heretical persuasion. It rejects Osman, and advocates the superiority of Omar over the other two Caliphs. [FN#11] Sadat is the plural of Sayyid. This word in the Northern Hijaz is applied indifferently to the posterity of Hasan and Hosayn. [FN#12] The plural of Ahl, an inhabitant (of a particular place). The reader will excuse my troubling him with these terms. As they are almost all local in their application, and therefore are not explained in such restricted sense by lexicographers, the specification may not be useless to the Oriental student. [FN#13] The Turkish “yataghan.” It is a long dagger, intended for thrusting rather than cutting, and has a curve, which, methinks, has been wisely copied by the Duke of Orleans, in the bayonet of the Chasseurs de Vincennes. [FN#14] See chapter xvii. [FN#15] Omar Effendi’s brothers, grandsons of the principal Mufti of Al-Madinah, were both shopkeepers, and were always exhorting him to do some useful work, rather than muddle his brains and waste his time on books. [FN#16] See chapter xiv. [FN#17] To a townsman, even during the dead season, the pay of a gardener would be 2 piastres, a carpenter 8 piastres per diem, and a common servant (a Bawwab or porter, for instance), 25 piastres per mensem, or £3 per annum, besides board and dress. Considering the value of money in the country, these are very high rates. [FN#18] Who alone sell milk, curds, or butter. The reason of their monopoly has been given in Chapter xiii. [FN#19] History informs us that the sanctity of their birth-place has not always preserved the people of Al-Madinah. But the memory of their misfortunes is soon washed away by the overwhelming pride of the race. [FN#20] The market is under the charge of an Arab Muhtasib or Bazar-master, who again is subject to the Muhafiz or Pasha governing the place. The following was the current price of provisions at Al-Madinah early in August, 1853: during the Visitation season everything is doubled:— 1 lb. mutton, 2 piastres, (beef is half-price, but seldom eaten; there is no buffalo meat, and only Badawin will touch the camel). A fowl, 5 piastres. Eggs, in summer 8, in winter 4, for the piastre. 1 lb. clarified butter, 4 piastres, (when cheap it falls to 2 1/2 Butter is made at home by those who eat it, and sometimes by the Egyptians for sale). 1 lb. milk, 1 piastre. 1 lb. cheese, 2 piastres, (when cheap it is 1, when dear 3 piastres per lb.) A Wheaten loaf weighing 12 dirhams, 10 parahs. (There are loaves of 24 dirhams, costing 1/2 piastre.) 1 lb. dry biscuits, (imported), 3 piastres. 1 lb. of vegetables, 1/2 piastre. 1 Mudd dates, varies according to quality from 4 piastres to 100. 1 lb. grapes, 1 1/2} piastre. A lime, 1 parah. A pomegranate, from 20 parahs to 1 piastre. A water-melon, from 3 to 6 piastres each. 1 lb. peaches, 2 piastres. 1 lb. coffee, 4 piastres, (the Yamani is the only kind drunk here). 1 lb. tea, 15 piastres, (black tea, imported from India). 1 lb. European loaf-sugar, 6 piastres, (white Egyptian, 5 piastres brown Egyptian, 3 piastres; brown Indian, for cooking and conserves, 3 piastres). 1 lb. spermaceti candles, 7 piastres, (called wax, and imported from Egypt). 1 lb. tallow candles, 3 piastres. 1 Ardeb wheat, 295 piastres. 1 Ardeb onions, 33 piastres, (when cheap 20, when dear 40). 1 Ardeb barley, 120 piastres, (minimum 90, maximum 180). 1 Ardeb rice, Indian, 302 piastres, (it varies from 260 to 350 piastres, according to quality). Durrah or maize is generally given to animals, and is very cheap. Barsim (clover, a bundle of) 3 Wakkiyahs, (36 Dirhams), costs 1 parah. Adas or Lentil is the same price as rice. 1 lb. Latakia tobacco, 16 piastres. 1 lb. Syrian tobacco, 8 piastres. 1 lb. Tumbak (Persian), 6 piastres. 1 lb. olive oil, 6 piastres, (when cheap it is 4). A skin of water, 1/2 piastre. Bag of charcoal, containing 100 Wukkah, 10 piastres. The best kind is made from an Acacia called “Samur.” The Parah (Turkish), Faddah (Egyptian), or Diwani (Hijazi word), is the 40th part of a piastre, or nearly the quarter of a farthing. The piastre is about 2 and two-fifths pence. Throughout Al-Hijaz there is no want of small change, as in Egypt, where the deficiency calls for the attention of the Government. [FN#21] Physiologists have remarked that fat and greasy food, containing a quantity of carbon, is peculiar to cold countries; whereas the inhabitants of the tropics delight in fruits, vegetables, and articles of diet which do not increase caloric. This must be taken cum grano. In Italy, Spain, and Greece, the general use of olive oil begins. In Africa and Asia—especially in the hottest parts—the people habitually eat enough clarified butter to satisfy an Esquimaux. [FN#22] In Persia, you jocosely say to a man, when he is threatened with a sudden inroad of guests, “Go and swamp the rice with Raughan (clarified butter).” [FN#23] Among the Indians, ghi, placed in pots carefully stopped up and kept for years till a hard black mass only remains, is considered a panacea for diseases and wounds. [FN#24] Some of these slaves come from Abyssinia: the greater part are driven from the Galla country, and exported at the harbours of the Somali coast, Berberah, Tajurrah, and Zayla. As many as 2000 slaves from the former place, and 4000 from the latter, are annually shipped off to Mocha, Jeddah, Suez, and Maskat. It is strange that the Imam of the latter place should voluntarily have made a treaty with us for the suppression of this vile trade, and yet should allow so extensive an importation to his dominions. [FN#25] More will be said concerning the origin of this strange custom, when speaking of Meccah and the Meccans. [FN#26] The word Tarbush is a corruption from the Persian Sarpush,—“head-covering,” “head-dress.” The Anglo-Saxon further debases it to “Tarbush.” The other name for the Tarbush, “Fez,” denotes the place where the best were made. Some Egyptians distinguish between the two, calling the large high crimson cap “Fez,” the small one “Tarbush.” [FN#27] In India, as in Sind, a lady of fashion will sometimes be occupied a quarter of an hour in persuading her “bloomers” to pass over the region of the ankle. [FN#28] In the plural called Jadail. It is a most becoming head-dress when the hair is thick, and when—which I regret to say is rare in Arabia—the twists are undone for ablution once a day. [FN#29] Plural of “Hurrah,” the free, the noble. [FN#30] See vol. i., p. 436, ante. [FN#31] This appears to be, and to have been, a favourite weapon with the Arabs. At the battle of Ohod, we read that the combatants amused themselves with throwing stones. On our road to Meccah, the Badawi attacked a party of city Arabs, and the fight was determined with these harmless weapons. At Meccah, the men, as well as the boys, use them with as much skill as the Somalis at Aden. As regards these feuds between different quarters of the Arab towns, the reader will bear in mind that such things can co-exist with considerable amount of civilization. In my time, the different villages in the Sorrentine plain were always at war. The Irish still fight in bodies at Birkenhead. And in the days of our fathers, the gamins of London amused themselves every Sunday by pitched battles on Primrose Hill, and the fields about Marylebone and St. Pancras. [FN#32] Alluding especially to their revengefulness, and their habit of storing up an injury, and of forgetting old friendships or benefits, when a trivial cause of quarrel arises. [FN#33] The sentence is passed by the Kazi: in cases of murder, he tries the criminal, and, after finding him guilty, sends him to the Pasha, who orders a Kawwas, or policeman, to strike off his head with a sword. Thieves are punished by mutilation of the hand. In fact, justice at Al-Madinah is administered in perfect conformity with the Shariat or Holy Law. [FN#34] Circumcisio utriusque sexus apud Arabos mos est vetustissimus. Aiunt theologi mutilationis hujus religiosae inventricem esse Saram, Abrahami uxorem quae, zelotypia incitata, Hagaris amorem minuendi gratia, somnientis puellae clitoridem exstirpavit. Deinde, Allaho jubente, Sara et Abrahamus ambo pudendorum partem cultello abscissere. Causa autem moris in viro mundities salusque, in puella impudicitiae prophylactica esse videntur. Gentes Asiaticae sinistra tantum manu abluentes utuntur; omnes quoque feminarem decies magis quam virorum libidinem aestimant. (Clitoridem amputant, quia, ut monet Aristoteles, pars illa sedes est et scaturigo veneris—rem plane profanam cum Sonninio exclamemus!) Nec excogitare potuit philosophus quanti et quam portentosi sunt talis mutilationis effectus. Mulierum minuuntur affectus, amor, voluptas. Crescunt tamen feminini doli, crudelitas, vitia et insatiabilis luxuria. (Ita in Eunuchis nonnunquam, teste Abelardo, suberstat cerebelli potestas, quum cupidinis satiandi facultas plane discessit.) Virilis quoque circumcisio lentam venerem et difficilem efficit. Glandis enim mollities frictione induratur, dehinc coitus tristis, tardus parumque vehemens. Forsitan in quibusdam populis localis quoque causa existit; caruncula immoderate crescente, amputationis necessitas exurgit. Deinde apud Somalos, gentem Africanam, excisio nympharum abscissioni clitoridis adjungitur. “Feminina circumcisio in Kahira Egyptiana et El Hejazio mos est universalis. Gens Bedouina uxorem salvam ducere nolit.”—Shaykh al-Nawawi “de Uxore ducenda,” &c., &c. [FN#35] A phrase corresponding with our “beaute du diable.” [FN#36] This means consulting the will of the Deity, by praying for a dream in sleep, by the rosary, by opening the Koran, and other such devices, which bear blame if a negative be deemed necessary. It is a custom throughout the Moslem world, a relic, doubtless, of the Azlam or Kidah (seven divining-arrows) of the Pagan times. At Al-Madinah it is generally called Khirah. [FN#37] Among respectable citizens 400 dollars would be considered a fair average sum; the expense of the ceremony would be about half. This amount of ready money (£150) not being always procurable, many of the Madani marry late in life. [FN#38] Boys are allowed to be present, but they are not permitted to cry. Of their so misdemeaning themselves there is little danger; the Arab in these matters is a man from his cradle. [FN#39] They are called the Asdikah; in the singular, Sadik. [FN#40] From what I saw at Al-Madinah, the people are not so unprejudiced on this point as the Cairenes, who think little of selling a book in Wakf. The subject of Wakf, however, is an extensive one, and does not wholly exclude the legality of sale. [FN#41] This Shaykh is a Maliki Moslem from Algiers, celebrated as an Alim (sage), especially in the mystic study Al-Jafr. He is a Wali or saint; but opinions differ as regards his Kiramat (saint’s miracles): some disciples look upon him as the Mahdi (the forerunner of the Prophet), others consider him a clever impostor. His peculiar dogma is the superiority of live over dead saints, whose tombs are therefore not to be visited—a new doctrine in a Maliki! Abbas Pasha loved and respected him, and, as he refused all presents, built him a new Zawiyah (oratory) at Bulak; and when the Egyptian ruler’s mother was at Al-Madinah, she called upon him three times, it is said, before he would receive her. His followers and disciples are scattered in numbers about Tripoli and, amongst other oases of the Fezzan, at Siwah, where they saved the Abbe Hamilton’s life in A.D[.] 1843. [FN#42] Burckhardt’s Travels in Arabia, vol. ii. p. 174. [FN#43] Of which I have given an account in chapter xvi. [FN#44] The only abnormal sound amongst the consonants heard here and in Al-Hijaz generally is the pronouncing of k (A[rabic]) a hard g—for instance, “Gur’an” for “Kur’an” (a Koran), and Haggi or Hakki (my right). This g, however, is pronounced deep in the throat, and does not resemble the corrupt Egyptian pronunciation of the jim (j, [Arabic]), a letter which the Copts knew not, and which their modern descendants cannot articulate. In Al-Hijaz, the only abnormal sounds amongst the vowels are o for u, as Khokh, a peach, and [Arabic] for [Arabic], as Ohod for Uhud. The two short vowels fath and kasr are correctly pronounced, the former never becoming a short e, as in Egypt (El for Al and Yemen for Yaman), or a short i, as in Syria (“min” for “man” who? &c.) These vowels, however, are differently articulated in every part of the Arab world. So says St. Jerome of the Hebrew: “Nec refert atrum Salem aut Salim nominetur; cum vocalibus in medio literis perraro utantur Hebraei; et pro voluntate lectorum, ac varietate regionum, eadem verba diversis sonis atque accentibus proferantur.” [FN#45] e.g., Ant Zarabt—thou struckedst—for Zarabta. The final vowel, suffering apocope, would leave “Zarabt” equally applicable to the first person singular and the second person singular masculine.

[p.28]CHAPTER XXII.

A VISIT TO THE SAINTS’ CEMETERY.

A splendid comet, blazing in the western sky, had aroused the apprehensions of the Madani. They all fell to predicting the usual disasters—war, famine, and pestilence,—it being still an article of Moslem belief that the Dread Star foreshows all manner of calamities. Men discussed the probability of Abd al-Majid’s immediate decease; for here as in Rome,

“When beggars die, there are no comets seen: The heavens themselves blaze forth the death of princes:”

and in every strange atmospheric appearance about the time of the Hajj, the Hijazis are accustomed to read tidings of the dreaded Rih al-Asfar.[FN#l]

Whether the event is attributable to the Zu Zuwabah—the “Lord of the Forelock,”—or whether it was a case of post hoc, ergò, propter hoc, I would not commit myself by deciding; but, influenced by some cause or other, the Hawazim and the Hawamid, sub-families of the Benu-Harb, began to fight about this time with prodigious fury. These tribes are generally at feud, and the least provocation fans their smouldering wrath into a flame. The Hawamid number, it is said, between three and four thousand fighting men, and the Hawazim not more than seven hundred: the latter however, are considered a race of desperadoes who pride themselves upon never retreating,

[p.29]and under their fiery Shaykhs, Abbas and Abu Ali, they are a thorn in the sides of their disproportionate foe. On the present occasion a Hamidah[FN#2] happened to strike the camel of a Hazimi which had trespassed; upon which the Hazimi smote the Hamidah, and called him a rough name. The Hamidah instantly shot the Hazimi, the tribes were called out, and they fought with asperity for some days. During the whole of the afternoon of Tuesday, the 30th of August, the sound of firing amongst the mountains was distinctly heard in the city. Through the streets parties of Badawin, sword and matchlock in hand, or merely carrying quarterstaves on their shoulders, might be seen hurrying along, frantic at the chance of missing the fray. The townspeople cursed them privily, expressing a hope that the whole race of vermin might consume itself. And the pilgrims were in no small trepidation, fearing the desertion of their camel-men, and knowing what a blaze is kindled in this inflammable land by an ounce of gunpowder. I afterwards heard that the Badawin fought till night, and separated after losing on both sides ten men.

This quarrel put an end to any lingering possibility of my prosecuting my journey to Maskat,[FN#3] as originally intended. I had on the way from Yambu’ to Al-Madinah privily made a friendship with one Mujrim of the Benu-Harb. The “Sinful,” as his name, ancient and classical amongst the Arabs, means, understood that I had some motive of secret interest to undertake the perilous journey. He could not promise at first to guide me, as his beat lay between Yambu’, Al-Madinah, Mec[c]ah, and Jeddah. But he offered to make all inquiries about the route, and to

[p.30] bring me the result at noonday, a time when the household was asleep. He had almost consented at last to travel with me about the end of August, in which case I should have slipped out of Hamid’s house and started like a Badawi towards the Indian Ocean. But when the war commenced, Mujrim, who doubtless wished to stand by his brethren the Hawazim, began to show signs of recusancy in putting off the day of departure to the end of September. At last, when pressed, he frankly told me that no traveller—nay, not a Badawi—could leave the city in that direction, even as far as historic Khaybar,[FN#4] which information I afterwards ascertained to be correct. It was impossible to start alone, and when in despair I had recourse to Shaykh Hamid, he seemed to think me mad for wishing to wend Northwards when all the world was hurrying towards the South. My disappointment was bitter at first, but consolation soon suggested itself. Under the most favourable circumstances, a Badawi-trip from Al-Madinah to Maskat, fifteen or sixteen hundred miles, would require at least ten months; whereas, under pain of losing my commission,[FN#5] I was ordered to be at Bombay before the end of March. Moreover, entering Arabia by Al-Hijaz, as has before been said, I was obliged to leave behind all my instruments except a watch and a pocket-compass, so the benefit rendered to geography by my trip would have been scanty. Still remained

[p.31] to me the comfort of reflecting that possibly at Meccah some opportunity of crossing the Peninsula might present itself. At any rate I had the certainty of seeing the strange wild country of the Hijaz, and of being present at the ceremonies of the Holy City. I must request the reader to bear with a Visitation once more: we shall conclude it with a ride to Al-Bakia.[FN#6] This venerable spot is frequented by the pious every day after the prayer at the Prophet’s Tomb, and especially on Fridays.

Our party started one morning,—on donkeys, as usual, for my foot was not yet strong,—along the Darb al-Janazah round the Southern wall of the town. The locomotion was decidedly slow, principally in consequence of the tent-ropes which the Hajis had pinned down literally all over the plain, and falls were by no means unfrequent. At last we arrived at the end of the Darb, where I committed myself by mistaking the decaying place of those miserable schismatics the Nakhawilah[FN#7] for Al-Bakia, the glorious cemetery of the Saints. Hamid corrected my blunder with tartness, to which I replied as tartly, that in our country—Afghanistan—we burned the body of every heretic upon whom we could lay our hands. This truly Islamitic custom was heard with general applause, and as the little dispute ended, we stood at the open gate of Al-Bakia. Then having dismounted I sat down on a low Dakkah or stone bench within the walls, to obtain a general view and to prepare for the most fatiguing of the Visitations.

There is a tradition that seventy thousand, or according to others a hundred thousand saints, all with faces like full moons, shall cleave on the last day the yawning bosom

[p.32] of Al-Bakia.[FN#8] About ten thousand of the Ashab (Companions of the Prophet) and innumerable Sadat are here buried: their graves are forgotten, because, in the olden time, tombstones were not placed over the last resting-places of mankind. The first of flesh who shall arise is Mohammed, the second Abu Bakr, the third Omar, then the people of Al-Bakia (amongst whom is Osman, the fourth Caliph), and then the incol[ae] of the Jannat al-Ma’ala, the Meccan cemetery. The Hadis, “whoever dies at the two Harims shall rise with the Sure on the Day of judgment,” has made these spots priceless in value. And even upon earth they might be made a mine of wealth. Like the catacombs at Rome, Al-Bakia is literally full of the odour of sanctity, and a single item of the great aggregate here would render any other Moslem town famous. It is a pity that this people refuses to exhume its relics.

The first person buried in Al-Bakia was Osman bin Maz’un, the first of the Muhajirs, who died at Al-Madinah. In the month of Sha’aban, A.H. 3, the Prophet kissed the forehead of the corpse and ordered it to be interred within sight of his abode.[FN#9] In those days the field was covered with the tree Gharkad; the vegetation was cut down, the ground was levelled, and Osman was placed in the centre of the new cemetery. With his own hands Mohammed planted two large upright stones at the head and the feet of his faithful follower[FN#10]; and in process of time a dome covered the spot. Ibrahim, the Prophet’s infant second

[p.33] son, was laid by Osman’s side, after which Al-Bakia became a celebrated cemetery.

The Burial-place of the Saints is an irregular oblong surrounded by walls which are connected with the suburb at their south-west angle. The Darb al-Janazah separates it from the enceinte of the town, and the eastern Desert Road beginning from the Bab al-Jumah bounds it on the North. Around it palm plantations seem to flourish. It is small, considering the extensive use made of it: all that die at Al-Madinah, strangers as well as natives, except only heretics and schismatics, expect to be interred in it. It must be choked with corpses, which it could never contain did not the Moslem style of burial greatly favour rapid decomposition; and it has all the inconveniences of “intramural sepulture.” The gate is small and ignoble; a mere doorway in the wall. Inside there are no flower-plots, no tall trees, in fact none of the refinements which lightens the gloom of a Christian burial-place: the buildings are simple, they might even be called mean. Almost all are the common Arab Mosque, cleanly whitewashed, and looking quite new. The ancient monuments were levelled to the ground by Sa’ad the Wahhabi and his puritan followers, who waged pitiless warfare against what must have appeared to them magnificent mausolea, deeming as they did a loose heap of stones sufficient for a grave. In Burckhardt’s time the whole place was a “confused accumulation of heaps of earth, wide pits, and rubbish, without a singular regular tomb-stone.” The present erections owe their existence, I was told, to the liberality of the Sultans Abd al-Hamid and Mahmud.

A poor pilgrim has lately started on his last journey, and his corpse, unattended by friends or mourners, is carried upon the shoulders of hired buriers into the cemetery. Suddenly they stay their rapid steps, and throw the body upon the ground. There is a life-like pliability

[p.34] about it as it falls, and the tight cerements so define the outlines that the action makes me shudder. It looks almost as if the dead were conscious of what is about to occur. They have forgotten their tools; one man starts to fetch them, and three sit down to smoke. After a time a shallow grave is hastily scooped out.[FN#11] The corpse is packed in it with such unseemly haste that earth touches it in all directions,—cruel carelessness among Moslems, who believe this to torture the sentient frame.[FN#12] One comfort suggests itself. The poor man being a pilgrim has died “Shahid”—in martyrdom. Ere long his spirit shall leave Al-Bakia,

“And he on honey-dew shall feed, And drink the milk of Paradise.”

I entered the holy cemetery right foot forwards, as if it were a Mosque, and barefooted, to avoid suspicion of being a heretic. For though the citizens wear their shoes in the Bakia, they are much offended at seeing the Persians follow their example. We began by the general benediction[FN#13]: “Peace be upon Ye, O People of Al-Bakia! Peace be upon Ye, O Admitted to the Presence of the

[p.35] Most High! Receive Ye what Ye have been promised! Peace be upon Ye, Martyrs of Al-Bakia, One and All! We verily, if Allah please, are about to join You! O Allah, pardon us and Them, and the Mercy of God, and His Blessings!” After which we recited the Chapter Al-Ikhlas and the Testification, then raised our hands, mumbled the Fatihah, passed our palms down our faces, and went on.

Walking down a rough narrow path, which leads from the western to the eastern extremity of Al-Bakia, we entered the humble mausoleum of the Caliph Osman—Osman “Al-Mazlum,” or the “ill-treated,” he is called by some Moslems. When he was slain,[FN#14] his friends wished to bury him by the Prophet in the Hujrah, and Ayishah made no objection to the measure. But the people of Egypt became violent; swore that the corpse should neither be buried nor be prayed over, and only permitted it to be removed upon the threat of Habibah (one of the “Mothers of the Moslems,” and daughter of Abu Sufiyan) to expose her countenance. During the night that followed his death, Osman was carried out by several of his friends to Al-Bakia, from which, however, they were driven away, and obliged to deposit their burden in a garden, eastward of and outside the saints’ cemetery. It was called Hisn Kaukab, and was looked upon as an inauspicious place of sepulture, till Marwan included it in Al-Bakia. We stood before Osman’s monument, repeating, “Peace be upon Thee, O our Lord Osman, Son of Affan![FN#15] Peace be upon

[p.36] Thee, O Caliph of Allah’s Apostle! Peace be upon Thee, O Writer of Allah’s Book! Peace be upon Thee, in whose Presence the Angels are ashamed![FN#16] Peace be upon Thee, O Collector of the Koran! Peace be upon Thee, O Son-in-Law of the Prophet! Peace be upon Thee, O Lord of the Two Lights (the two daughters of Mohammed)![FN#17] Peace be upon Thee, who fought the Battle of the Faith! Allah be satisfied with Thee, and cause Thee to be satisfied, and render Heaven thy Habitation! Peace be upon Thee, and the Mercy of Allah and His Blessing, and Praise be to Allah, Lord of the (three) Worlds!” This supplication concluded in the usual manner. After which we gave alms, and settled with ten piastres the demands of the Khadim[FN#18] who takes charge of the tomb: this double-disbursing process had to be repeated at each station.

Then moving a few paces to the North, we faced Eastwards, and performed the Visitation of Abu Sa’id al-Khazari, a Sahib or Companion of the Prophet, whose sepulchre lies outside Al-Bakia. The third place visited was a dome containing the tomb of our lady Halimah, the Badawi wet-nurse who took charge of Mohammed[FN#19]:

[p.37] she is addressed hus; “Peace be upon Thee, O Halimah the Auspicious![FN#20] Peace be upon Thee, who performed thy Trust in suckling the Best of Mankind! Peace be upon Thee, O Wet-nurse of Al-Mustafa (the chosen)! Peace be upon Thee, O Wet-nurse of Al-Mujtaba (the (accepted)![FN#21] May Allah be satisfied with Thee, and cause Thee to be satisfied, and render Heaven thy House and Habitation! and verily we have come visiting Thee, and by means of Thee drawing near to Allah’s Prophet, and through Him to God, the Lord of the Heavens and the Earths.[FN#22]”

After which, fronting the North, we stood before a low enclosure, containing ovals of loose stones, disposed side by side. These are the Martyrs of Al-Bakia, who received the crown of glory at the hands of Al-Muslim,[FN#23] the general of the arch-heretic Yazid[FN#24] The prayer here recited differs so little from that addressed to the martyrs of Ohod, that I will not transcribe it. The fifth station is near the centre of the cemetery at the tomb of Ibrahim, who died, to the eternal regret of Al-Islam, some say six months old, others in his second year. He was the son

[p.38] of Mariyah, the Coptic girl, sent as a present to Mohammed by Jarih, the Mukaukas or governor of Alexandria. The Prophet with his own hand piled earth upon the grave, and sprinkled it with water,—a ceremony then first performed,—disposed small stones upon it, and pronounced the final salutation. For which reason many holy men were buried in this part of the cemetery, every one being ambitious to lie in ground which has been honored by the Apostle’s hands. Then we visited Al-Nafi Maula, son of Omar, generally called Imam Nafi al-Kari, or the Koran chaunter; and near him the great doctor Imam Malik ibn Anas, a native of Al-Madinah, and one of the most dutiful of her sons. The eighth station is at the tomb of Ukayl bin Abi Talib, brother of Ali.[FN#25] Then we visited the spot where lie interred all the Prophet’s wives, Khadijah, who lies at Meccah, alone excepted. Mohammed married fifteen wives of whom nine survived him. After the “Mothers of the Moslems,” we prayed at the tombs of Mohammed’s daughters, said to be ten in number.

In compliment probably to the Hajj, the beggars mustered strong that morning at Al-Bakia. Along the walls and at the entrance of each building squatted ancient dames, all engaged in anxious contemplation of every approaching face, and in pointing to dirty cotton napkins spread upon the ground before them, and studded with a few coins, gold, silver, or copper, according to the expectations of the proprietress. They raised their voices to demand largesse: some promised to recite Fatihahs, and the most audacious seized visitors by the skirts of their

[p.39] garments. Fakihs, ready to write “Y.S.,” or anything else demanded of them, covered the little heaps and eminences of the cemetery, all begging lustily, and looking as though they would murder you, when told how beneficent is Allah—polite form of declining to be charitable. At the doors of the tombs old housewives, and some young ones also, struggled with you for your slippers as you doffed them, and not unfrequently the charge of the pair was divided between two. Inside, when the boys were not loud enough or importunate enough for presents, they were urged on by the adults and seniors, the relatives of the “Khadims” and hangers-on. Unfortunately for me, Shaykh Hamid was renowned for taking charge of wealthy pilgrims: the result was, that my purse was lightened of three dollars. I must add that although at least fifty female voices loudly promised that morning, for the sum of ten parahs each, to supplicate Allah in behalf of my lame foot, no perceptible good came of their efforts.

Before leaving Al-Bakia, we went to the eleventh station, [FN#26] the Kubbat al-Abbasiyah, or Dome of Abbas. Originally built by the Abbaside Caliphs in A.H. 519, it is a larger and a handsomer building than its fellows, and it is situated on the right-hand side of the gate as you enter. The crowd of beggars at the door testified to its importance: they were attracted by the Persians who assemble here in force to weep and to pray. Crossing the threshold with some difficulty, I walked round a mass of tombs which occupies the centre of the building, leaving but a narrow passage between it and the walls. It is railed round, and covered over with several “Kiswahs” of green cloth worked with white letters: it looked like a confused

[p.40] heap, but it might have appeared irregular to me by the reason of the mob around. The Eastern portion contains the body of Al-Hasan, the son of Ali and grandson of the Prophet[FN#27]; the Imam Zayn al-Abidin, son of Al-Hosayn, and great-grandson to the Prophet; the Imam Mohammed al-Bakir (fifth Imam), son to Zayn al-Abidin; and his son the Imam a’afar al-Sadik—all four descendants of the Prophet, and buried in the same grave with Abbas ibn Abd al-Muttalib, uncle to Mohammed. It is almost needless to say that these names are subjects of great controversy. Al-Musudi mentions that here was found an inscribed stone declaring it to be the tomb of the Lady Fatimah, of Hasan her brother, of Ali bin Hosayn, of Mohammed bin Ali, and of Ja’afar bin Mohammed. Ibn Jubayr, describing Al-Bakia, mentions only two in this tomb, Abbas and Hasan; the head of the latter, he says, in the direction of the former’s feet. Other authors

[p.41] relate that in it, about the ninth century of the Hijrah, was found a wooden box covered with fresh-looking red felt cloth, with bright brass nails, and they believe it to have contained the corpse of Ali, placed here by his own son Hasan.

Standing opposite this mysterious tomb, we repeated, with difficulty by reason of the Persians weeping, the following supplication:—“Peace be upon Ye, O Family of the Prophet! O Lord Abbas, the free from Impurity and Uncleanness, and Father’s Brother to the Best of Men! And Thou too O Lord Hasan, Grandson of the Prophet! And thou also O Lord Zayn al-Abidin[FN#28]! Peace be upon Ye, One and All, for verily God hath been pleased to deliver You from all Guile, and to purify You with all Purity. The Mercy of Allah and His Blessings be upon Ye, and verily He is the Praised, the Mighty!” After which, freeing ourselves from the hands of greedy boys, we turned round and faced the southern wall, close to which is a tomb attributed to the Lady Fatimah.[FN#29] I will not repeat the prayer, it being the same as that recited in the Harim.

[p.42] Issuing from the hot and crowded dome, we recovered our slippers after much trouble, and found that our garments had suffered from the frantic gesticulations of the Persians. We then walked to the gate of Al-Bakia, stood facing the cemetery upon an elevated piece of ground, and delivered the general benediction.

“O Allah! O Allah! O Allah! O full of Mercy! O abounding in Beneficence! Lord of Length (of days), and Prosperity, and Goodness! O Thou, who when asked, grantest, and when prayed for aid, aidest! Have Mercy upon the Companions of thy Prophet, of the Muhajirin, and the Ansar! Have Mercy upon them, One and All!

[p.43] Have Mercy upon bdullah bin Hantal” (and so on, specifying their names), “and make Paradise their Resting-place, their Habitation, their Dwelling, and their Abode! O Allah! accept our Ziyarat, and supply our Wants, and lighten our Griefs, and restore us to our Homes, and comfort our Fears, and disappoint not our Hopes, and pardon us, for on no other do we rely; and let us depart in Thy Faith, and after the Practice of Thy Prophet, and be Thou satisfied with us! O Allah! forgive our past Offences, and leave us not to our (evil) Natures during the Glance of an Eye, or a lesser Time; and pardon us, and pity us, and let us return to our Houses and Homes safe,” (i.e., spiritually and physically) “fortunate, abstaining from what is unlawful, re-established after our Distresses, and belonging to the Good, thy Servants upon whom is no Fear, nor do they know Distress. Repentance, O Lord! Repentance, O Merciful! Repentance, O Pitiful! Repentance before Death, and Pardon after Death! I beg pardon of Allah! Thanks be to Allah! Praise be to Allah! Amen, O Lord of the (three) Worlds!”

After which, issuing from Al-Bakia,[FN#30] we advanced

[p.44] northwards, leaving the city gate on the left hand, till we came to a small Kubbah (dome) close to the road. It is visited as containing the tomb of the Prophet’s paternal aunts, especially of Safiyah, daughter of Abd al-Muttalib, sister of Hamzah, and one of the many heroines of early Al-Islam. Hurrying over our devotions here,—for we were tired indeed,—we applied to a Sakka for water, and entered a little coffee-house near the gate of the town: after which we rode home.

I have now described, at a wearying length I fear, the spots visited by every Zair at Al-Madinah. The guide-books mention altogether between fifty and fifty-five Mosques and other holy places, most of which are now unknown even by name to the citizens. The most celebrated of these are the few following, which I describe from hearsay. About three miles to the North-west of the town, close to the Wady al-Akik, lies the Mosque called Al-Kiblatayn—“The Two Directions of Prayer.” Some give this title to the Masjid al-Takwa at Kuba.[FN#31] Others assert that the Prophet, after visiting and eating

[p.45] at the house of an old woman named Umm Mabshar, went to pray the mid-day prayer in the Mosque of the Benu Salmah. He had performed the prostration with his face towards Jerusalem, when suddenly warned by revelation he turned Southwards and concluded his orisons in that direction.[FN#32] I am told it is a mean dome without inner walls, outer enclosures, or minaret.

The Masjid Benu Zafar (some write the word Tifr) is also called Masjid al-Baghlah—of the She-mule,—because, according to Al-Matari, on the ridge of stone to the south of this Mosque are the marks where the Prophet leaned his arm, and where the she-mule, Duldul, sent by the Mukaukas as a present with Mariyah the Coptic girl and Yafur the donkey, placed its hoofs. At the Mosque was shown a slab upon which the Prophet sat hearing recitations from the Koran; and historians declare that by following his example many women have been blessed with offspring.[FN#33] This Mosque is to the East of Al-Bakia.

The Masjid al-Jumah—of Friday,—or Al-Anikah—of the Sand-heaps,—is in the valley near Kuba, where Mohammed prayed and preached on the first Friday after his flight from Meccah [FN#34]

The Masjid al-Fazikh—of Date-liquor—is so called because when Abu Ayyub and others of the Ansar were sitting with cups in their hands, they heard that intoxicating

[p.46] draughts were for the future forbidden, upon which they poured the liquor upon the ground. Here the Prophet prayed six days whilst he was engaged in warring down the Benu Nazir Jews. The Mosque derives its other name, Al-Shams—of the Sun—because, being erected on rising ground East of and near Kuba, it receives the first rays of morning light.

To the Eastward of the Masjid al-Fazikh lies the Masjid al-Kurayzah, erected on a spot where the Prophet descended to attack the Jewish tribe of that name. Returning from the battle of the Moat, wayworn and tired with fighting, he here sat down to wash and comb his hair, when suddenly appeared to him the Archangel Gabriel in the figure of a horseman dressed in a corslet and covered with dust. “The Angels of Allah,” said the preternatural visitor, “are still in Arms, O Prophet, and it is Allah’s Will that Thy foot return to the Stirrup. I go before Thee to prepare a Victory over the Infidels, the Sons of Kurayzah.” The legend adds that the dust raised by the angelic host was seen in the streets of Al-Madinah, but that mortal eye fell not upon horseman’s form. The Prophet ordered his followers to sound the battle-call, gave his flag to Ali,—the Arab token of appointing a commander-in-chief,—and for twenty-five days invested the habitations of the enemy. This hapless tribe was exterminated, sentence of death being passed upon them by Sa’ad ibn Ma’az, an Ausi whom they constituted their judge because he belonged to an allied tribe. Six hundred men were beheaded in the Market-place of Al-Madinah, their property was plundered, and their wives and children were reduced to slavery.

“Tantane relligio potuit suadere malorum!”

The Masjid Mashrabat Umm Ibrahim, or Mosque of the garden of Ibrahim’s mother, is a place where Mariyah the Copt had a garden, and became the mother of

[p.47] Ibrahim, the Prophet’s second son.[FN#35] It is a small building in what is called the Awali, or highest part of the Al-Madinah plain, to the North of the Masjid Benu Kurayzah, and near the Eastern Harrah or ridge.[FN#36]

Northwards of Al-Bakia is, or was, a small building called the Masjid al-Ijabah—of Granting,—from the following circumstance. One day the Prophet stopped to perform his devotions at this place, which then belonged to the Benu Mu’awiyah of the tribe of Aus. He made a long Dua or supplication, and then turning to his Companions, exclaimed, “I have asked of Allah three favours, two hath he vouchsafed to me, but the third was refused!” Those granted were that the Moslems might never be destroyed by famine or by deluge. The third was that they might not perish by internecine strife.

The Masjid al-Fath (of Victory), vulgarly called the “Four Mosques,” is situated in the Wady Al-Sayh,[FN#37] which comes from the direction of Kuba, and about half a mile to the East of “Al-Kiblatayn.” The largest is called the Masjid al-Fath, or Al-Ahzab—of the Troops,—and is alluded to in the Koran. Here it is said the Prophet prayed for three days during the Battle of the Moat, also called the affair “Al-Ahzab,” the last fought with the Infidel Kuraysh under Abu Sufiyan. After three days of devotion, a cold and violent blast arose, with rain

[p.48] and sleet, and discomfited the foe. The Prophet’s prayer having here been granted, it is supposed by ardent Moslems that no petition put up at the Mosque Al-Ahzab is ever neglected by Allah. The form of supplication is differently quoted by different authors. When Al-Shafe’i was in trouble and fear of Harun al-Rashid, by the virtue of this formula he escaped all danger: I would willingly offer so valuable a prophylactory to my readers, only it is of an unmanageable length. The doctors of Al-Islam also greatly differ about the spot where the Prophet stood on this occasion; most of them support the claims of the Masjid al-Fath, the most elevated of the four, to that distinction. Below, and to the South of the highest ground, is the Masjid Salman al-Farsi, the Persian, from whose brain emanated the bright idea of the Moat. At the mature age of two hundred and fifty, some say three hundred and fifty, after spending his life in search of a religion, from a Magus (fire-worshipper)[FN#38] becoming successively a Jew and a Nazarene, he ended with being a Moslem, and a Companion of Mohammed. During his eventful career he had been ten times sold into slavery. Below Salman’s Mosque is the Masjid Ali, and the smallest building on the South of the hill is called Masjid Abu Bakr. All these places owe their existence to Al-Walid the Caliph: they were repaired at times by his successors.

The Masjid al-Rayah—of the Banner—was originally built by Al-Walid upon a place where the Prophet pitched his tent during the War of the Moat. Others call it Al-Zubab, after a hill upon which it stands. Al-Rayah is separated from the Masjid al-Fath by a rising ground called Jabal Sula or Jabal Sawab[FN#39]: the former

[p.49] being on the Eastern, whilst the latter lies upon the Western declivity of the hill. The position of this place is greatly admired, as commanding the fairest view of the Harim.

About a mile and a half South-east of Al-Bakia is a dome called Kuwwat Islam, the “Strength of Al-Islam.” Here the Apostle planted a dry palm-stick, which grew up, blossomed, and bore fruit at once. Moreover, on one occasion when the Moslems were unable to perform the pilgrimage, Mohammed here produced the appearance of a Ka’abah, an Arafat, and all the appurtenances of the Hajj. I must warn my readers not to condemn the founder of Al-Islam for these puerile inventions.

The Masjid Onayn lies South of Hamzah’s tomb. It is on a hill called Jabal al-Rumat, the Shooters’ Hill, and here during the battle of Ohod stood the archers of Al-Islam. According to some, the Prince of Martyrs here received his death-wound; others place that event at the Masjid al-Askar or the Masjid al-Wady.[FN#40]

Besides these fourteen, I find the names, and nothing but the names, of forty Mosques. The reader loses little by my unwillingness to offer him a detailed list of such appellations as Masjid Benu Abd al-Ashhal, Masjid Benu Harisah, Masjid Benu Harim, Masjid al-Fash, Masjid al-Sukiya, Masjid Benu Bayazah, Masjid Benu Hatmah,

“Cum multis aliis quæ nunc perscribere longum est.”

[FN#1] The cholera. See chapter xviii. [FN#2] The word Hawamid is plural of Hamidah, Hawazin of Hazimi. [FN#3] Anciently there was a Caravan from Maskat to Al-Madinah. My friends could not tell me when the line had been given up, but all were agreed that for years they had not seen an Oman caravan, the pilgrims preferring to enter Al-Hijaz via Jeddah. [FN#4] According to Abulfeda, Khaybar is six stations N.E. of Al-Madinah; it is four according to Al-Idrisi; but my informants assured me that camels go there easily, as the Tarikh al-Khamisy says, in three days. I should place it 80 miles N.N.E. of Al-Madinah. Al-Atwal locates it in 65° 20' E. lon., and 25° 20' N. lat; Al-Kanun in lon. 67° 30', and lat. 24° 20'; Ibn Sa’id in lon. 64° 56', and lat. 27°; and D’Anville in lon. 57°, and lat. 25°. In Burckhardt’s map, and those copied from it, Khaybar is placed about 2° distant from Al-Madinah, which I believe to be too far. [FN#5] The Parliamentary limit of an officer’s leave from India is five years: if he overstay that period, he forfeits his commission. {to me the comfort of reflecting that possibly at Meccah some opportunity of crossing the Peninsula might present itself. At any rate I had the certainty of seeing the strange wild country of the Hijaz, and of being present at the ceremonies of the Holy City. I must request the reader to bear with a Visitation once more: we shall conclude it with a ride to Al-Bakia.[FN#6] This venerable spot is frequented by the pious every day after the prayer at the Prophet’s Tomb, and especially on Fridays. [FN#6] The name means “the place of many roots.” It is also called Bakia Al-Gharkad—the place of many roots of the tree Rhamnus. Gharkad is translated in different ways: some term it the lote, others the tree of the Jews (Forskal, sub voce). [FN#7] See chapter xxi., ante. [FN#8] The same is said of the Makbarah Benu Salmah or Salim, a cemetery to the west of Al-Madinah, below rising ground called Jabal Sula. It has long ago been deserted. See chapter xiv. [FN#9] In those days Al-Madinah had no walls, and was clear of houses on the East of the Harim. [FN#10] These stones were removed by Al-Marwan, who determined that Osman’s grave should not be distinguished from his fellows. For this act, the lieutenant of Mu’awiyah was reproved and blamed by pious Moslems. [FN#11] It ought to be high enough for the tenant to sit upright when answering the interrogatory angels. [FN#12] Because of this superstition, in every part of Al-Islam, some contrivance is made to prevent the earth pressing upon the body. [FN#13] This blessing is in Mohammed’s words, as the beauty of the Arabic shows. Ayishah relates that in the month Safar, A.H. 11, one night the Prophet, who was beginning to suffer from the headache which caused his death, arose from his couch, and walked out into the darkness; whereupon she followed him in a fit of jealousy, thinking he might be about to visit some other wife. He went to Al-Bakia, delivered the above benediction (which others give somewhat differently), raised his hands three times, and turned to go home. Ayishah hurried back, but she could not conceal her agitation from her husband, who asked her what she had done. Upon her confessing her suspicions, he sternly informed her that he had gone forth, by order of the Archangel Gabriel, to bless and to intercede for the people of Al-Bakia. Some authors relate a more facetious termination of the colloquy.—M.C. de Perceval (Essai, &c., vol. iii. p. 314.) [FN#14] “Limping Osman,” as the Persians contemptuously call him, was slain by rebels, and therefore became a martyr according to the Sunnis. The Shi’ahs justify the murder, saying it was the act of an “Ijma al-Muslimin,” or the general consensus of Al-Islam, which in their opinion ratifies an act of “lynch law.” [FN#15] This specifying the father Affan, proves him to have been a Moslem. Abu Bakr’s father, “Kahafah,” and Omar’s “Al-Khattab,” are not mentioned by name in the Ceremonies of Visitation. [FN#16] The Christian reader must remember that the Moslems rank angelic nature, under certain conditions, below human nature. [FN#17] Osman married two daughters of the Prophet, a circumstance which the Sunnis quote as honourable to him: the Shi’ahs, on the contrary, declare that he killed them both by ill-treatment. [FN#18] These men are generally descendants of the Saint whose tomb they own: they receive pensions from the Mudir of the Mosque, and retain all fees presented to them by visitors. Some families are respectably supported in this way. [FN#19] This woman, according to some accounts, also saved Mohammed’s life, when an Arab Kahin or diviner, foreseeing that the child was destined to subvert the national faith, urged the bystanders to bury their swords in his bosom. The Sharifs of Meccah still entrust their children to the Badawin, that they may be hardened by the discipline of the Desert. And the late Pasha of Egypt gave one of his sons in charge of the Anizah tribe, near Akabah. Burckhardt (Travels in Arabia, vol. i. p. 427) makes some sensible remarks about this custom, which cannot be too much praised. [FN#20] Al- “Sadiyah,” a double entendre; it means auspicious, and also alludes to Halimah’s tribe, the Benu Sa’ad. [FN#21] Both these words are titles of the Prophet. Al-Mustafa means the “Chosen”; Al-Mujtaba, the “Accepted.” [FN#22] There being, according to the Moslems, many heavens and many earths. [FN#23] See chapter xx. [FN#24] The Shafe’i school allows its disciples to curse Al-Yazid, the son of Mu’awiyah, whose cruelties to the descendants of the Prophet, and crimes and vices, have made him the Judas Iscariot of Al-Islam. I have heard Hanafi Moslems, especially Sayyids, revile him; but this is not, strictly speaking, correct. The Shi’ahs, of course, place no limits to their abuse of him. You first call a man “Omar,” then “Shimr,” (the slayer of Al-Hosayn), and lastly, “Yazid,” beyond which insult does not extend. [FN#25] Ukayl or Akil, as many write the name, died at Damascus, during the Caliphate of Al-Mu’awiyah. Some say he was buried there, others that his corpse was transplanted to Al-Madinah, and buried in a place where formerly his house, known as “Dar Ukayl,” stood. [FN#26] Some are of opinion that the ceremonies of Ziyarat formerly did, and still should begin here. But the order of visitation differs infinitely, and no two authors seem to agree. I was led by Shaykh Hamid, and indulged in no scruples. [FN#27] Burckhardt makes a series of mistakes upon this subject. “Hassan ibn Aly, whose trunk only lies buried here (in El Bakia), his head having been sent to Cairo, where it is preserved in the fine Mosque called El-Hassanya.” The Mosque Al-Hasanayn (the “two Hasans”) is supposed to contain only the head of Al-Hosayn, which, when the Crusaders took Ascalon, was brought from thence by Sultan Salih or Beybars, and conveyed to Cairo. As I have said before, the Persians in Egypt openly show their contempt of this tradition. It must be remembered that Al-Hasan died poisoned at Al-Madinah by his wife Ja’adah. Al-Hosayn, on the other hand, was slain and decapitated at Kerbela. According to the Shi’ahs, Zayn al-Abidin obtained from Yazid, after a space of forty days, his father’s head, and carried it back to Kerbela, for which reason the event is known to the Persians as “Chilleyeh sar o tan,” the “forty days of (separation between) the head and trunk.” They vehemently deny that the body lies at Kerbela, and the head at Cairo. Others, again, declare that Al-Hosayn’s head was sent by Yazid to Amir bin al-As, the governor of Al-Madinah, and was by him buried near Fatimah’s Tomb. Nor are they wanting who declare, that after Yazid’s death the head was found in his treasury, and was shrouded and buried at Damascus. Such is the uncertainty which hangs over the early history of Al-Islam[.] [FN#28] The names of the fifth and sixth Imams, Mohammed al-Bakia and Ja’afar al-Sadik, were omitted by Hamid, as doubtful whether they are really buried here or not. [FN#29] Moslem historians seem to delight in the obscurity which hangs over the lady’s last resting-place, as if it were an honour even for the receptacle of her ashes to be concealed from the eyes of men. Some place her in the Harim, relying upon this tradition: “Fatimah, feeling about to die, rose up joyfully, performed the greater ablution, dressed herself in pure garments, spread a mat upon the floor of her house near the Prophet’s Tomb, lay down fronting the Kiblah, placed her hand under her cheek, and said to her attendant, “I am pure and in a pure dress; now let no one uncover my body, but bury me where I lie!” When Ali returned he found his wife dead, and complied with her last wishes. Omar bin Abd al-Aziz believed this tradition, when he included the room in the Mosque; and generally in Al-Islam Fatimah is supposed to be buried in the Harim. Those who suppose the Prophet’s daughter to be buried in Al-Bakia rely upon a saying of the Imam Hasan, “If men will not allow me to sleep beside my grandsire, place me in Al-Bakia, by my mother.” They give the following account of his death and burial. His body was bathed and shrouded by Ali and Omar Salmah. Others say that Asma Bint Umays, the wife of Abu Bakr, was present with Fatimah, who at her last hour complained of being carried out, as was the custom of those days, to burial like a man. Asma promised to make her a covered bier, like a bride’s litter, of palm sticks, in shape like what she had seen in Abyssinia: whereupon Fatimah smiled for the first time after her father’s death, and exacted from her a promise to allow no one entrance as long as her corpse was in the house. Ayishah, shortly afterwards knocking at the door, was refused admittance by Asma; the former complained of this to her father, and declared that her stepmother had been making a bride’s litter to carry out the corpse. Abu Bakr went to the door, and when informed by his wife that all was the result of Fatimah’s orders, he returned home making no objection. The death of the Prophet’s daughter was concealed by her own desire from high and low; she was buried at night, and none accompanied her bier, or prayed at her grave, except Ali and a few relatives. The Shi’ahs found a charge of irreverence and disrespect against Abu Bakr for absence on this occasion. The third place which claims Fatimah’s honoured remains, is a small Mosque in Al-Bakia, South of the Sepulchre of Abbas. It was called Bayt al-Huzn—House of Mourning—because here the lady passed the end of her days, lamenting the loss of her father. Her tomb appears to have formerly been shown there. Now visitors pray, and pray only twice,—at the Harim, and in the Kubbat al-Abbasiyah. [FN#30] The other celebrities in Al-Bakia are:—

Fatimah bint As’ad, mother of Ali. She was buried with great religious pomp. The Prophet shrouded her with his own garment (to prevent hell from touching her), dug her grave, lay down in it (that it might never squeeze or be narrow to her), assisted in carrying the bier, prayed over her, and proclaimed her certain of future felicity. Over her tomb was written, “The grave hath not closed upon one like Fatimah, daughter of As’ad.” Historians relate that Mohammed lay down in only four graves: 1. Khadijah’s, at Meccah. 2. Kasim’s, her son by him. 3. That of Umm Ruman, Ayishah’s mother. 4. That of Abdullah al-Mazni, a friend and companion.

Abd al-Rahman bin Auf was interred near Osman bin Maz’un. Ayishah offered to bury him in her house near the Prophet, but he replied that he did not wish to narrow her abode, and that he had promised to sleep by the side of his friend Maz’un. I have already alluded to the belief that none has been able to occupy the spare place in the Hujrah.

Ibn Hufazah al-Sahmi, who was one of the Ashab al-Hijratayn (who had accompanied both flights, the greater and the lesser), here died of a wound received at Ohod, and was buried in Shawwal, A.H. 3, one month after Osman bin Maz’un.

Abdullah bin Mas’ud, who, according to others, is buried at Kufah.

Sa’ad ibn Zararah, interred near Osman bin Maz’un.

Sa’ad bin Ma’az, who was buried by the Prophet. He died of a wound received during the battle of the Moat.

Abd al-Rahman al-Ausat, son of Omar, the Caliph. He was generally known as Abu Shahmah, the “Father of Fat”: he sickened and died, after receiving from his father the religious flogging—impudicitiae causa.

Abu Sufiyan bin al-Haris, grandson of Abd al-Muttalib. He was buried near Abdullah bin Ja’afar al-Tayyar, popularly known as the “most generous of the Arabs,” and near Ukayl bin Abi Talib, the brother of Ali mentioned above.

These are the principal names mentioned by popular authors. The curious reader will find in old histories a multitude of others, whose graves are now utterly forgotten at Al-Madinah. [FN#31] See chapter xix. [FN#32] The story is related in another way. Whilst Mohammed was praying the Asr or afternoon prayer at the Harim he turned his face towards Meccah. Some of the Companions ran instantly to all the Mosques, informing the people of the change. In many places they were not listened to, but the Benu Salmah who were at prayer instantly faced Southwards. To commemorate their obedience the Mosque was called Al-Kiblatayn. [FN#33] I cannot say whether this valuable stone be still at the Mosque Benu Tifr. But I perfectly remember that my friend Larking had a mutilated sphynx in his garden at Alexandria, which was found equally efficacious. [FN#34] See chapter xvii. [FN#35] Mohammed’s eldest son was Kasim, who died in his infancy, and was buried at Meccah. Hence the Prophet’s pædonymic, Abu Kasim, the sire of Kasim. [FB#36] Ayishah used to relate that she was exceedingly jealous of the Coptic girl’s beauty, and of the Prophet’s love for her. Mohammed seeing this, removed Mariyah from the house of Harisat bin al-Numan, in which he had placed her, to the Awali of Al-Madinah, where the Mosque now is. Oriental authors use this term “Awali,” high-grounds, to denote the plains to the Eastward and Southward of the City, opposed to Al-Safilah, the lower ground on the W. and N.W. [FN#37] I am very doubtful about this location of the Masjid al-Fath. [FN#38] A magus, a magician, one supposed to worship fire. The other rival sect of the time was the Sabœan who adored the heavenly bodies. [FN#39] The Mosque of “reward in heaven.” It is so called because during the War of the Moat, the Prophet used to live in a cave there, and afterwards he made it a frequent resort for prayer. [FN#40] Hamzah’s fall is now placed at the Kubbat al-Masra. See chapter xx.

[p.50]CHAPTER XXIII.

THE DAMASCUS CARAVAN.

THE Damascus Caravan was to set out on the 27th Zu’l Ka’adah (1st September). I had intended to stay at Al-Madinah till the last moment, and to accompany the Kafilat al-Tayyarah, or the “Flying Caravan,” which usually leaves on the 2nd Zu’l Hijjah, two days after that of Damascus.

Suddenly arose the rumour that there would be no Tayyarah,[FN#l] and that all pilgrims must proceed with the Damascus Caravan or await the Rakb. This is a Dromedary Caravan, in which each person carries only his saddle-bags. It usually descends by the road called Al-Khabt, and makes Meccah on the fifth day. The Sharif Zayd, Sa’ad the Robber’s only friend, had paid him an unsuccessful visit. Schinderhans demanded back his Shaykh-ship, in return for a safe-conduct through his country: “Otherwise,” said he, “I will cut the throat of every hen that ventures into the passes.”

The Sharif Zayd returned to Al-Madinah on the 25th Zu’l Ka’adah (30th August). Early on the morning of the next day, Shaykh Hamid returned hurriedly from the bazar, exclaiming, “You must make ready at once, Effendi!—there will be no Tayyarah—all Hajis start to-morrow—Allah will make it easy to you!—have you

[p.51] your water-skins in order?—you are to travel down the Darb al-Sharki, where you will not see water for three days!”

Poor Hamid looked horrorstruck as he concluded this fearful announcement, which filled me with joy. Burckhardt had visited and had described the Darb al-Sultani, the road along the coast. But no European had as yet travelled down by Harun al-Rashid’s and the Lady Zubaydah’s celebrated route through the Nijd Desert.

Not a moment, however, was to be lost: we expected to start early the next morning. The boy Mohammed went forth, and bought for eighty piastres a Shugduf, which lasted us throughout the pilgrimage, and for fifteen piastres a Shibriyah or cot to be occupied by Shaykh Nur, who did not relish sleeping on boxes. The youth was employed all day, with sleeves tucked up, and working like a porter, in covering the litter with matting and rugs, in mending broken parts, and in providing it with large pockets for provisions inside and outside, with pouches to contain the gugglets of cooled water.

Meanwhile Shaykh Nur and I, having inspected the water-skins, found that the rats had made considerable rents in two of them. There being no workman procurable at this time for gold, I sat down to patch the damaged articles; whilst Nur was sent to lay in supplies for fourteen days. The journey is calculated at eleven days; but provisions are apt to spoil, and the Badawi camel-men expect to be fed. Besides which, pilferers abound. By my companion’s advice I took wheat-flour, rice, turmeric, onions, dates, unleavened bread of two kinds, cheese, limes, tobacco, sugar, tea and coffee.

Hamid himself started upon the most important part of our business. Faithful camel-men are required upon a road where robberies are frequent and stabbings occasional, and where there is no law to prevent desertion or to limit new and exorbitant demands. After a time he

[p.52] returned, accompanied by a boy and a Badawi, a short, thin, well-built old man with regular features, a white beard, and a cool clear eye; his limbs, as usual, were scarred with wounds. Mas’ud of the Rahlah, a sub-family of the Hamidah family of the Benu-Harb, came in with a dignified demeanour, applied his dexter palm to ours,[FN#2] sat down, declined a pipe, accepted coffee, and after drinking it, looked at us to show that he was ready for nego[t]iation. We opened the proceedings with “We want men, and not camels,” and the conversation proceeded in the purest Hijazi.[FN#3] After much discussion, we agreed, if compelled to travel by the Darb al-Sharki, to pay twenty dollars for two camels,[FN#4] and to advance Arbun, or earnest-money, to half that amount.[FN#5] The Shaykh bound himself to provide us with good animals, which, moreover, were to be changed in case of accidents: he was also to supply his beasts with water, and to accompany us to Arafat and back. But, absolutely refusing to carry my large chest, he declared that the tent under the Shugduf was burden enough for one camel; and that the green box of drugs, the saddle-bags, and the provision-sacks, surmounted by Nur’s cot, were amply sufficient for the other. On our part, we bound ourselves to feed the

[p.53] Shaykh and his son, supplying them either with raw or with cooked provender, and, upon our return to Meccah from Mount Arafat, to pay the remaining hire with a discretionary present.

Hamid then addressed to me flowery praises of the old Badawi. After which, turning to the latter, he exclaimed, “Thou wilt treat these friends well, O Mas’ud the Harbi!” The ancient replied with a dignity that had no pomposity in it,—“Even as Abu Shawarib—the Father of Mustachios[FN#6]—behaveth to us, so will we behave to him!” He then arose, bade us be prepared when the departure-gun sounded, saluted us, and stalked out of the room, followed by his son, who, under pretext of dozing, had mentally made an inventory of every article in the room, ourselves especially included.

When the Badawin disappeared, Shaykh Hamid shook his head, advising me to give them plenty to eat, and never to allow twenty-four hours to elapse without dipping hand in the same dish with them, in order that the party might always be “Malihin,”—on terms of salt.[FN#7] He concluded

[p.54] with a copious lecture upon the villainy of Badawin, and on their habit of drinking travellers’ water. I was to place the skins on a camel in front, and not behind; to hang them with their mouths carefully tied, and turned upwards, contrary to the general practice; always to keep a good store of liquid, and at night to place it under the safeguard of the tent.

In the afternoon, Omar Effendi and others dropped in to take leave. They found me in the midst of preparations, sewing sacks, fitting up a pipe, patching water-bags, and packing medicines. My fellow-traveller had brought me some pencils[FN#8] and a penknife, as “forget-me-nots,” for we were by no means sure of meeting again. He hinted, however, at another escape from the paternal abode, and proposed, if possible, to join the Dromedary-Caravan. Shaykh Hamid said the same, but I saw, by the expression of his face, that his mother and wife would not give him leave from home so soon after his return.

Towards evening-time the Barr al-Manakhah became a scene of exceeding confusion. The town of tents lay upon the ground. Camels were being laden, and were roaring under the weight of litters and cots, boxes and baggage. Horses and mules galloped about. Men were rushing wildly in all directions on worldly errands, or hurrying to pay a farewell visit to the Prophet’s Tomb. Women and children sat screaming on the ground, or ran to and fro distracted, or called their vehicles to escape the danger of being crushed. Every now and then a random shot excited all into the belief that the departure-gun had sounded. At times we heard a volley from the robbers’ hills, which elicited a general groan, for the pilgrims were still, to use their own phrase, “between fear

[p.55] and hope,” and, consequently, still far from “one of the two comforts.[FN#9]” Then would sound the loud “Jhin-Jhin” of the camels’ bells, as the stately animals paced away with some grandee’s gilt and emblazoned litter, the sharp plaint of the dromedary, and the loud neighing of excited steeds.

About an hour after sunset all our preparations were concluded, save only the Shugduf, at which the boy Mohammed still worked with untiring zeal; he wisely remembered that he had to spend in it the best portion of a week and a half. The evening was hot, we therefore dined outside the house. I was told to repair to the Harim for the Ziyarat al-Wida’a, or the “Farewell Visitation”; but my decided objection to this step was that we were all to part,—how soon!—and when to meet again we knew not. My companions smiled consent, assuring me that the ceremony could be performed as well at a distance as in the temple.

Then Shaykh Hamid made me pray a two-bow prayer, and afterwards, facing towards the Harim, to recite this supplication with raised hands:

“O Apostle of Allah, we beg Thee to entreat Almighty Allah, that He cut off no Portion of the Good resulting to us, from this Visit to Thee and to Thy Harim! May He cause us to return safe and prosperous to our Birth-places; aid then us in the Progeny he hath given us, and continue to us his Benefits, and make us thankful for our daily Bread! O Allah, let not this be the last of our Visitations to Thy Apostle's Tomb! Yet if Thou summon us before such Blessing, verily in my Death I bear Witness, as in my Life,” (here the forefinger of the right hand is extended, that the members of the body may take part with the tongue and the heart) “that there

[p.56] is no god but Allah, One and without Partner, and verily that our Lord Mohammed is His Servant and His Apostle! O Allah, grant us in this World Weal, and in the future Weal, and save us from the torments of Hell-fire! Praise to Thee, O Lord, Lord of Glory, greater than Man can describe! and Peace be upon the Apostle, and Laud to Allah, the Lord of the (three) Worlds.” This concludes, as usual, with the Testification and the Fatihah. Pious men on such an occasion go to the Rauzah, where they strive, if possible, to shed a tear,—a single drop being a sign of acceptance,—give alms to the utmost of their ability, vow piety, repentance, and obedience, and retire overwhelmed with grief, at separating themselves from their Prophet and Intercessor. It is customary, too, before leaving Al-Madinah, to pass at least one night in vigils at the Harim, and for learned men to read through the Koran once before the tomb.

Then began the uncomfortable process of paying off little bills. The Eastern creditor always, for divers reasons, waits the last moment before he claims his debt. Shaykh Hamid had frequently hinted at his difficulties; the only means of escape from which, he said, was to rely upon Allah. He had treated me so hospitably, that I could not take back any part of the £5 lent to him at Suez. His three brothers received a dollar or two each, and one or two of his cousins hinted to some effect that such a proceeding would meet with their approbation.

The luggage was then carried down, and disposed in packs upon the ground before the house, so as to be ready for loading at a moment’s notice. Many flying parties of travellers had almost started on the high road, and late in the evening came a new report that the body of the Caravan would march about midnight. We sat up till about two A.M., when, having heard no gun, and having seen no camels, we lay down to sleep through the sultry remnant of the hours of darkness.

[p.57]Thus, gentle reader, was spent my last night at Al-Madinah.

I had reason to congratulate myself upon having passed through the first danger. Meccah is so near the coast, that, in case of detection, the traveller might escape in a few hours to Jeddah, where he would find an English Vice-Consul, protection from the Turkish authorities, and possibly a British cruiser in the harbour. But at Al-Madinah discovery would entail more serious consequences. The next risk to be run was the journey between the two cities, where it would be easy for the local officials quietly to dispose of a suspected person by giving a dollar to a Badawi.

[FN#1] The “Tayyarah,” or “Flying Caravan,” is lightly laden, and travels by forced marches. [FN#2] This “Musafahah,” as it is called, is the Arab fashion of shaking hands. They apply the palms of the right hands flat to each other, without squeezing the fingers, and then raise the hand to the forehead. [FN#3] On this occasion I heard three new words: “Kharitah,” used to signify a single trip to Meccah (without return to Al-Madinah), “Ta’arifah,” going out from Meccah to Mount Arafat, and “Tanzilah,” return from Mount Arafat to Meccah. [FN#4] And part of an extra animal which was to carry water for the party. Had we travelled by the Darb al-Sultani, we should have paid 6½ dollars, instead of 10, for each beast. [FN#5] The system of advances, as well as earnest money, is common all over Arabia. In some places, Aden for instance, I have heard of two-thirds the price of a cargo of coffee being required from the purchaser before the seller would undertake to furnish a single bale. [FN#6] Most men of the Shafe’i school clip their mustachios exceedingly short; some clean shave the upper lip, the imperial, and the parts of the beard about the corners of the mouth, and the forepart of the cheeks. I neglected so to do, which soon won for me the epithet recorded above. Arabs are vastly given to “nick-naming God’s creatures”; their habit is the effect of acute observation, and the want of variety in proper names. Sonnini appears not to like having been called the “Father of a nose.” But there is nothing disrespectful in these personal allusions. In Arabia you must be “father” of something, and it is better to be father of a feature, than father of a cooking pot, or father of a strong smell (“Abu-Zirt.”) [FN#7] Salt among the Hindus is considered the essence and preserver of the seas; it was therefore used in their offerings to the gods. The old idea in Europe was, that salt is a body composed of various elements, into which it cannot be resolved by human means: hence, it became the type of an indissoluble tie between individuals. Homer calls salt sacred and divine, and whoever ate it with a stranger was supposed to become his friend. By the Greek authors, as by the Arabs, hospitality and salt are words expressing a kindred idea. When describing the Badawin of Al-Hijaz, I shall have occasion to notice their peculiar notions of the Salt-law. [FN#8] The import of such articles shows the march of progress in Al-Hijaz. During the last generation, schoolmasters used for pencils bits of bar lead beaten to a point. [FN#9] The “two comforts” are success and despair; the latter, according to the Arabs, being a more enviable state of feeling than doubt or hope deferred.

[p.58]CHAPTER XXIV.

FROM AL-MADINAH TO AL-SUWAYRKIYAH.

FOUR roads lead from Al-Madinah to Meccah. The [“]Darb al-Sultani,” or “Sultan’s Highway,” follows the line of coast: this general passage has been minutely described by my exact predecessor. The “Tarik al-Ghabir,” a mountain path, is avoided by the Mahmil and the great Caravans on account of its rugged passes; water abounds along the whole line, but there is not a single village and the Sobh Badawin, who own the soil[,] are inveterate plunderers. The route called “Wady al-Kura” is a favourite with Dromedary Caravans; on this road are two or three small settlements, regular wells, and free passage through the Benu Amr tribe. The Darb al-Sharki, or “Eastern road,” down which I travelled, owes its existence to the piety of the Lady Zubaydah, wife of Harun al-Rashid. That munificent princess dug wells from Baghdad to Al-Madinah, and built, we are told, a wall to direct pilgrims over the shifting sands.[FN#1] There is a fifth road, or rather mountain path, concerning which I can give no information.

At eight A.M. on Wednesday, the 26th Zu’l Ka’adah

[p.59] (31st August, 1853), as we were sitting at the window of Hamid’s house after our early meal, suddenly appeared, in hottest haste, Mas’ud, our Camel-Shaykh. He was accompanied by his son, a bold boy about fourteen years of age, who fought sturdily about the weight of each package as it was thrown over the camel’s back; and his nephew, an ugly pock-marked lad, too lazy even to quarrel. We were ordered to lose no time in loading; all started into activity, and at nine A.M. I found myself standing opposite the Egyptian Gate, surrounded by my friends, who had accompanied me thus far on foot, to take leave with due honour. After affectionate embraces and parting mementoes, we mounted, the boy Mohammed and I in the litter, and Shaykh Nur in his cot. Then in company with some Turks and Meccans, for Mas’ud owned a string of nine camels, we passed through the little gate near the castle, and shaped our course towards the North. On our right lay the palm-groves, which conceal this part of the city; far to the left rose the domes of Hamzah’s Mosques at the foot of Mount Ohod; and in front a band of road, crowded with motley groups, stretched over a barren stony plain.

After an hour’s slow march, bending gradually from North to North-East, we fell into the Nijd highway, and came to a place of renown called Al-Ghadir, or the Basin.[FN#2] This is a depression conducting the drainage of the plain towards the northern hills. The skirts of Ohod still limited the prospect to the left. On the right was the Bir Rashid (Well of Rashid), and the little whitewashed dome of Ali al-Urays, a descendant from Zayn al-Abidin:—the tomb is still a place of Visitation. There we halted and turned to take farewell of the Holy City. All the

[p.60] pilgrims dismounted and gazed at the venerable minarets and the Green Dome,—spots upon which their memories would for ever dwell with a fond and yearning interest.

Remounting at noon, we crossed a Fiumara which runs, according to my Camel-Shaykh, from North to South; we were therefore emerging from the Madinah basin. The sky began to be clouded, and although the air was still full of Samu[m], cold draughts occasionally poured down from the hills. Arabs fear this

“bitter change Of fierce extremes, extremes by change more fierce,”

and call that a dangerous climate which is cold in the hot season and hot in the cold. Travelling over a rough and stony path, dotted with thorny Acacias, we arrived about two P.M. at the bed of lava heard of by Burckhardt.[FN#3] The

[p.61] aspect of the country was volcanic, abounding in basalts and scoriae, more or less porous: sand veiled the black bed whose present dimensions by no means equal the descriptions of Arabian historians. I made diligent enquiries about the existence of active volcanoes in this part of Al-Hijaz, and heard of none.

At five P.M., travelling towards the East, we entered a Bughaz,[FN#4] or Pass, which follows the course of a wide Fiumara, walled in by steep and barren hills,—the portals of a region too wild even for Badawin. The torrent-bed narrowed where the turns were abrupt, and the drift of heavy stones, with a water-mark from six to seven feet

[p.62] high, showed that after rains a violent stream runs from East and South-East to West and North-West. The fertilising fluid is close to the surface, evidenced by a spare growth of Acacia, camel-grass, and at some angles of the bed by the Daum, or Theban palm.[FN#5] I remarked what was technically called “Hufrah,” holes dug for water in the sand; and the guide assured me that somewhere near there is a spring flowing from the rocks.

After the long and sultry afternoon, beasts of burden began to sink in numbers. The fresh carcases of asses, ponies, and camels dotted the wayside: those that had been allowed to die were abandoned to the foul carrion-birds, the Rakham (vulture), and the yellow Ukab; and all whose throats had been properly cut, were surrounded by troops of Takruri pilgrims. These half-starved wretches cut steaks from the choice portions, and slung them over their shoulders till an opportunity of cooking might arrive. I never saw men more destitute. They carried wooden bowls, which they filled with water by begging; their only weapon was a small knife, tied in a leathern sheath above the elbow; and their costume an old skull-cap, strips of leather like sandals under the feet, and a long dirty shirt, or sometimes a mere rag covering the loins. Some were perfect savages, others had been fine-looking men, broad-shouldered, thin-flanked, and long-limbed; many were lamed by fatigue and by thorns; and looking at most of them, I fancied death depicted in their forms and features.

After two hours’ slow marching up the Fiumara eastwards, we saw in front of us a wall of rock; and, turning abruptly southwards, we left the bed, and ascended rising ground. Already it was night; an hour, however, elapsed before we saw, at a distance, the twinkling fires, and heard the watch-cries of our camp. It was

[p.63] pitched in a hollow, under hills, in excellent order; the Pasha’s pavilion surrounded by his soldiers and guards disposed in tents, with sentinels, regularly posted, protecting the outskirts of the encampment. One of our men, whom we had sent forward, met us on the way, and led us to an open place, where we unloaded the camels, raised our canvas home, lighted fires, and prepared, with supper, for a good night’s rest. Living is simple on such marches. The pouches inside and outside the Shugduf contain provisions and water, with which you supply yourself when inclined. At certain hours of the day, ambulant vendors offer sherbet, lemonade, hot coffee, and water-pipes admirably prepared.[FN#6] Chibuks may be smoked in the litter; but few care to do so during the Samu[m]. The first thing, however, called for at the halting-place is the pipe, and its delightfully soothing influence, followed by a cup of coffee, and a “forty winks” upon the sand, will awaken an appetite not to be roused by other means. How could Waterton, the traveller, abuse a pipe? During the night-halt, provisions are cooked: rice, or Kichri, a mixture of pulse and rice, is eaten with Chutnee and lime-pickle, varied, occasionally, by tough mutton and indigestible goat.

We arrived at Ja al-Sharifah at eight P.M., after a march of about twenty-two miles.[FN#7] This halting-place is

[p.64] the rendezvous of Caravans: it lies 50° south-east of Al-Madinah, and belongs rather to Nijd than to Al-Hijaz.

At three A.M., on Thursday (Sept. 1), we started up at the sound of the departure-gun, struck the tent, loaded the camels, mounted, and found ourselves hurrying through a gloomy pass, in the hills, to secure a good place in the Caravan. This is an object of some importance, as, during the whole journey, marching order must not be broken. We met with a host of minor accidents, camels falling, Shugdufs bumping against one another, and plentiful abuse. Pertinaciously we hurried on till six A.M., at which hour we emerged from the Black Pass. The large crimson sun rose upon us, disclosing, through purple mists, a hollow of coarse yellow gravel, based upon a hard whitish clay. About five miles broad by twelve long, it collects the waters of the high grounds after rain, and distributes the surplus through an exit towards the North-west, a gap in the low undulating hills around. Entering it, we dismounted, prayed, broke our fast, and after half an hour’s halt proceeded to cross its breadth. The appearance of the Caravan was most striking, as it threaded its slow way over the smooth surface of the Khabt (low plain).[FN#8] To judge by the eye, the host was composed of at fewest seven thousand souls, on foot, on horseback, in litters, or bestriding the splendid camels of Syria.[FN#9] There were eight gradations of pilgrims.

[p.65] The lowest hobbled with heavy staves. Then came the riders of asses, of camels, and of mules. Respectable men, especially Arabs, were mounted on dromedaries, and the soldiers had horses: a led animal was saddled for every grandee, ready whenever he might wish to leave his litter. Women, children, and invalids of the poorer classes sat upon a “Haml Musattah,”—rugs and cloths spread over the two large boxes which form the camel’s load.[FN#10] Many occupied Shibriyahs; a few, Shugdufs, and only the wealthy and the noble rode in Takht-rawan (litters), carried by camels or mules.[FN#11] The morning beams fell brightly upon the glancing arms which surrounded the stripped Mahmil,[FN#12] and upon the scarlet and gilt conveyances of the grandees. Not the least beauty of the spectacle was its wondrous variety of detail: no man was dressed like his neighbour, no camel was caparisoned, no horse was

[p.66] clothed in uniform, as it were. And nothing stranger than the contrasts; a band of half-naked Takruri marching with the Pasha’s equipage, and long-capped, bearded Persians conversing with Tarbush’d and shaven Turks.

The plain even at an early hour reeked with vapours distilled by the fires of the Samum: about noon, however, the air became cloudy, and nothing of colour remained, save that milky white haze, dull, but glaring withal, which is the prevailing day-tint in these regions. At mid-day we reached a narrowing of the basin, where, from both sides, “Irk,” or low hills, stretch their last spurs into the plain. But after half a mile, it again widened to upwards of two miles. At two P.M. (Friday, Sept. 2), we turned towards the South-west, ascended stony ground, and found ourselves one hour afterwards in a desolate rocky flat, distant about twenty-four miles of unusually winding road from our last station. “Mahattah Ghurab,[FN#13]” or the Raven’s Station, lies 10° south-west from Ja al-Sharifah, in the irregular masses of hill on the frontier of Al-Hijaz, where the highlands of Nijd begin.

After pitching the tent, we prepared to recruit our supply of water; for Mas’ud warned me that his camels had not drunk for ninety hours, and that they would soon sink under the privation. The boy Mohammed, mounting a dromedary, set off with the Shaykh and many water-bags, giving me an opportunity of writing out my journal. They did not return home until after nightfall, a delay caused by many adventures. The wells are in a Fiumara, as usual, about two miles distant from the halting-place, and the soldiers, regular as well as irregular, occupied the water and exacted hard coin in exchange for it. The men are not to blame; they would die of starvation but for this resource. The boy Mohammed had been engaged in several quarrels; but after

[p.67] snapping his pistol at a Persian pilgrim’s head, he came forth triumphant with two skins of sweetish water, for which we paid ten piastres. He was in his glory. There were many Meccans in the Caravan, among them his elder brother and several friends: the Sharif Zayd had sent, he said, to ask why he did not travel with his compatriots. That evening he drank so copiously of clarified butter, and ate dates mashed with flour and other abominations to such an extent, that at night he prepared to give up the ghost.

We passed a pleasant hour or two before sleeping. I began to like the old Shaykh Mas’ud, who, seeing it, entertained me with his genealogy, his battles, and his family affairs. The rest of the party could not prevent expressing contempt when they heard me putting frequent questions about torrents, hills, Badawin, and the directions of places. “Let the Father of Moustachios ask and learn,” said the old man; “he is friendly with the Badawin,[FN#14] and knows better than you all.” This reproof was intended to be bitter as the poet’s satire,—

“All fools have still an itching to deride, And fain would be upon the laughing side.”

It called forth, however[,] another burst of merriment, for the jeerers remembered my nickname to have belonged to that pestilent heretic, Sa’ud the Wahhabi.

On Saturday, the 3rd September, the hateful signal-gun awoke us at one A.M. In Arab travel there is nothing more disagreeable than the Sariyah or night-march, and yet the people are inexorable about it. “Choose early Darkness (daljah) for your Wayfarings,” said the Prophet, “as the Calamities of the Earth (serpents and wild beasts) appear not at Night.” I can scarcely find words to express the weary horrors of the long dark march, during which the hapless traveller, fuming, if a European, with disappointment in his hopes of “seeing the country,” [p.68] is compelled to sit upon the back of a creeping camel. The day-sleep, too, is a kind of lethargy, and it is all but impossible to preserve an appetite during the hours of heat.

At half-past five A.M., after drowsily stumbling through hours of outer gloom, we entered a spacious basin at least six miles broad, and limited by a circlet of low hill. It was overgrown with camel-grass and Acacia (Shittim) trees, mere vegetable mummies; in many places the water had left a mark; and here and there the ground was pitted with mud-flakes, the remains of recently dried pools. After an hour’s rapid march we toiled over a rugged ridge, composed of broken and detached blocks of basalt and scoriæ, fantastically piled together, and dotted with thorny trees. Shaykh Mas’ud passed the time in walking to and fro along his line of camels, addressing us with a Khallikum guddam, “to the front (of the litter)!” as we ascended, and a Khallikum wara, “to the rear!” during the descent. It was wonderful to see the animals stepping from block to block with the sagacity of mountaineers; assuring themselves of their forefeet before trusting all their weight to advance. Not a camel fell, either here or on any other ridge: they moaned, however, piteously, for the sudden turns of the path puzzled them; the ascents were painful, the descents were still more so; the rocks were sharp; deep holes yawned between the blocks, and occasionally an Acacia caught the Shugduf, almost overthrowing the hapless bearer by the suddenness and the tenacity of its clutch. This passage took place during daylight. But we had many at night, which I shall neither forget nor describe.

Descending the ridge, we entered another hill-encircled basin of gravel and clay. In many places basalt in piles and crumbling strata of hornblende schiste, disposed edgeways, green within, and without blackened by sun and rain, cropped out of the ground. At half-past ten we

[p.69] found ourselves in an “Acacia-barren,” one of the things which pilgrims dread. Here Shugdufs are bodily pulled off the camel’s back and broken upon the hard ground; the animals drop upon their knees, the whole line is deranged, and every one, losing temper, attacks his Moslem brother. The road was flanked on the left by an iron wall of black basalt. Noon brought us to another ridge, whence we descended into a second wooded basin surrounded by hills.

Here the air was filled with those pillars of sand so graphically described by Abyssinian Bruce. They scudded on the wings of the whirlwind over the plain,—huge yellow shafts, with lofty heads, horizontally bent backwards, in the form of clouds; and on more than one occasion camels were thrown down by them. It required little stretch of fancy to enter into the Arabs’ superstition. These sand-columns are supposed to be Jinnis of the Waste, which cannot be caught, a notion arising from the fitful movements of the electrical wind-eddy that raises them, and as they advance, the pious Moslem stretches out his finger, exclaiming, “Iron! O thou ill-omened one[FN#15]!”

During the forenoon we were troubled by the Samum, which, instead of promoting perspiration, chokes up and hardens the skin. The Arabs complain greatly of its violence on this line of road. Here I first remarked the difficulty with which the Badawin bear thirst. Ya Latif,—“O Merciful!” (Lord),—they exclaimed at times; and yet they behaved like men.[FN#16] I had ordered them to place the

[p.70] water-camel in front, so as to exercise due supervision. Shaykh Mas’ud and his son made only an occasional reference to the skins. But his nephew, a short, thin, pock-marked lad of eighteen, whose black skin and woolly head suggested the idea of a semi-African and ignoble origin, was always drinking; except when he climbed the camel’s back, and, dozing upon the damp load, forgot his thirst. In vain we ordered, we taunted, and we abused him: he would drink, he would sleep, but he would not work.

At one P.M. we crossed a Fiumara; and an hour afterwards we pursued the course of a second. Mas’ud called this the Wady al-Khunak, and assured me that it runs from the East and the South-east in a North and North-west direction, to the Madinah plain. Early in the afternoon we reached a diminutive flat, on the Fiumara bank. Beyond it lies a Mahjar or stony ground, black as usual in Al-Hijaz, and over its length lay the road, white with dust and with the sand deposited by the camels’ feet. Having arrived before the Pasha, we did not know where to pitch; many opining that the Caravan would traverse the Mahjar and halt beyond it. We soon alighted, however, pitched the tent under a burning sun, and were imitated by the rest of the party. Mas’ud called the place Hijriyah. According to my computation, it is twenty-five miles from Ghurab, and its direction is South-East twenty-two degrees.

Late in the afternoon the boy Mohammed started with a dromedary to procure water from the higher part of the Fiumara. Here are some wells, still called Bir Harun, after the great Caliph. The youth returned soon with two bags filled at an expense of nine piastres. This being the 28th Zu’l Ka’adah, many pilgrims busied themselves

[p.71] rather fruitlessly with endeavours to sight the crescent moon. They failed; but we were consoled by seeing through a gap in the Western hills a heavy cloud discharge its blessed load, and a cool night was the result.

We loitered on Sunday, the 4th September, at Al-Hijriyah, although the Shaykh forewarned us of a long march. But there is a kind of discipline in these great Caravans. A gun[FN#17] sounds the order to strike the tents, and a second bids you move off with all speed. There are short halts, of half an hour each, at dawn, noon, the afternoon, and sunset, for devotional purposes, and these are regulated by a cannon or a culverin. At such times the Syrian and Persian servants, who are admirably expert in their calling, pitch the large green tents, with gilt crescents, for the dignitaries and their harims. The last resting-place is known by the hurrying forward of these “Farrash,” or tent “Lascars,” who are determined to be the first on the ground and at the well. A discharge of three guns denotes the station, and when the Caravan moves by night a single cannon sounds three or four halts at irregular intervals. The principal officers were the Emir Hajj, one Ashgar Ali Pasha, a veteran of whom my companions spoke slightingly, because he had been the slave of a slave, probably the pipe-bearer of some grandee who in his youth had been pipe-bearer to some other grandee. Under him was a Wakil, or lieutenant, who managed the executive. The Emir al-Surrah—called simply Al-Surrah, or the Purse—had charge of the Caravan-treasure, and of remittances to the Holy Cities. And lastly there was a commander of the

[p.72] forces (Bashat al-Askar): his host consisted of about a thousand Irregular horsemen, Bash-Buzuks, half bandits, half soldiers, each habited and armed after his own fashion, exceedingly dirty, picturesque-looking, brave, and in such a country of no use whatever.

Leaving Al-Hijriyah at seven A.M., we passed over the grim stone-field by a detestable footpath, and at nine o’clock struck into a broad Fiumara, which runs from the East towards the North-West. Its sandy bed is overgrown with Acacia, the Senna plant, different species of Euphorbiae, the wild Capparis, and the Daum Palm. Up this line we travelled the whole day. About six P.M., we came upon a basin at least twelve miles broad, which absorbs the water of the adjacent hills. Accustomed as I have been to mirage, a long thin line of salt efflorescence appearing at some distance on the plain below us, when the shades of evening invested the view, completely deceived me. Even the Arabs were divided in opinion, some thinking it was the effects of the rain which fell the day before: others were more acute. It is said that beasts are never deceived by the mirage, and this, as far as my experience goes, is correct. May not the reason be that most of them know the vicinity of water rather by smell than by sight? Upon the horizon beyond the plain rose dark, fort-like masses of rock which I mistook for buildings, the more readily as the Shaykh had warned me that we were approaching a populous place. At last descending a long steep hill, we entered upon the level ground, and discovered our error by the crunching sound of the camel[s’] feet upon large curling flakes of nitrous salt overlying caked mud.[FN#18] Those civilised birds, the kite and the crow, warned us that we were in the vicinity of man. It was not, however, before eleven P.M. that we entered the confines of Al-Suwayrkiyah. The fact was

[p.73] made patent to us by the stumbling and the falling of our dromedaries over the little ridges of dried clay disposed in squares upon the fields. There were other obstacles, such as garden walls, wells, and hovels, so that midnight had sped before our weary camels reached the resting-place. A rumour that we were to halt here the next day, made us think lightly of present troubles; it proved, however, to be false.

During the last four days I attentively observed the general face of the country. This line is a succession of low plains and basins, here quasi-circular, there irregularly oblong, surrounded by rolling hills and cut by Fiumaras which pass through the higher ground. The basins are divided by ridges and flats of basalt and greenstone averaging from one hundred to two hundred feet in height. The general form is a huge prism; sometimes they are table-topped. From Al-Madinah to Al-Suwayrkiyah the low beds of sandy Fiumaras abound. From Al-Suwayrkiyah to Al-Zaribah, their place is taken by “Ghadir,” or hollows in which water stagnates. And beyond Al-Zaribah the traveller enters a region of water-courses tending West and South-West The versant is generally from the East and South-East towards the West and North-West. Water obtained by digging is good where rain is fresh in the Fiumaras; saltish, so as to taste at first unnaturally sweet, in the plains; and bitter in the basins and lowlands where nitre effloresces and rain has had time to become tainted. The landward faces of the hills are disposed at a sloping angle, contrasting strongly with the perpendicularity of their seaward sides, and I found no inner range corresponding with, and parallel to, the maritime chain. Nowhere had I seen a land in which Earth’s anatomy lies so barren, or one richer in volcanic and primary formations.[FN#19] Especially

[p.74] towards the South, the hills were abrupt and highly vertical, with black and barren flanks, ribbed with furrows and fissures, with wide and formidable precipices and castellated summits like the work of man. The predominant formation was basalt, called the Arabs’ Hajar Jahannam, or Hell-stone; here and there it is porous and cellular; in some places compact and black; and in others coarse and gritty, of a tarry colour, and when fractured shining with bright points. Hornblende is common at Al-Madinah and throughout this part of Al-Hijaz: it crops out of the ground edgeways, black and brittle. Greenstone, diorite, and actinolite are found, though not so abundantly as those above mentioned. The granites, called in Arabic Suwan,[FN#20] abound. Some are large-grained, of a pink colour, and appear in blocks, which, flaking off under the influence of the atmosphere, form ooidal blocks and boulders piled in irregular heaps. Others are grey and compact enough to take a high polish when cut. The syenite is generally coarse, although there is occasionally found a rich red variety of that stone. I did not see eurite or euritic porphyry except in small pieces, and the same may be said of the petrosilex and the milky and waxy quartz.[FN#21] In some parts, particularly between Yambu’ and Al-Madinah, there is an abundance of tawny

[p.75] yellow gneiss markedly stratified. The transition formations are represented by a fine calcareous sandstone of a bright ochre colour: it is used at Meccah to adorn the exteriors of houses, bands of this stone being here and there inserted into the courses of masonry. There is also a small admixture of the greenish sandstone which abounds at Aden. The secondary formation is represented by a fine limestone, in some places almost fit for the purposes of lithography, and a coarse gypsum often of a tufaceous nature. For the superficial accumulations of the country, I may refer the reader to any description of the Desert between Cairo and Suez.

[FN#1] The distance from Baghdad to Al-Madinah is 180 parasangs, according to ’Abd al-Karim: “Voyage de l’Inde, a la Mecque;” translated by M. Langles, Paris, 1797. This book is a disappointment, as it describes everything except Al-Madinah and Meccah: these gaps are filled up by the translator with the erroneous descriptions of other authors, not eye-witnesses. [FN#2] Here, it is believed, was fought the battle of Buas, celebrated in the pagan days of Al-Madinah (A.D. 615). Our dictionaries translate “Ghadir” by “pool” or “stagnant water.” Here it is applied to places where water stands for a short time after rain. [FN#3] Travels in Arabia, vol. 2, p, 217. The Swiss traveller was prevented by sickness from visiting it. The “Jazb al-Kulub” affords the following account of a celebrated eruption, beginning on the Salkh (last day) of Jamadi al-Awwal, and ending on the evening of the third of Jamadi al-Akhir, A.H. 654. Terrible earthquakes, accompanied by a thundering noise, shook the town; from fourteen to eighteen were observed each night. On the third of Jamadi al-Akhir, after the Isha prayers, a fire burst out in the direction of Al-Hijaz (eastward); it resembled a vast city with a turretted and battlemental fort, in which men appeared drawing the flame about, as it were, whilst it roared, burned, and melted like a sea everything that came in its way. Presently red and bluish streams, bursting from it, ran close to Al-Madinah; and, at the same time, the city was fanned by a cooling zephyr from the same direction. Al-Kistlani, an eye-witness, asserts that “the brilliant light of the volcano made the face of the country as bright as day; and the interior of the Harim was as if the sun shone upon it, so that men worked and required nought of the sun and moon (the latter of which was also eclipsed?).” Several saw the light at Meccah, at Tayma (in Nijd, six days’ journey from Al-Madinah), and at Busra, of Syria, reminding men of the Prophet’s saying, “A fire shall burst forth from the direction of Al-Hijaz; its light shall make visible the necks of the camels at Busra.” Historians relate that the length of the stream was four parasangs (from fourteen to sixteen miles), its breadth four miles (56? to the degree), and its depth about nine feet. It flowed like a torrent with the waves of a sea; the rocks, melted by its heat, stood up as a wall, and, for a time, it prevented the passage of Badawin, who, coming from that direction, used to annoy the citizens. Jamal Matari, one of the historians of Al-Madinah, relates that the flames, which destroyed the stones, spared the trees; and he asserts that some men, sent by the governor to inspect the fire, felt no heat; also that the feathers of an arrow shot into it were burned whilst the shaft remained whole. This he attributes to the sanctity of the trees within the Harim. On the contrary, Al-Kistlani asserts the fire to have been so vehement that no one could approach within two arrow-flights, and that it melted the outer half of a rock beyond the limits of the sanctuary, leaving the inner parts unscathed. The Kazi, the Governor, and the citizens engaged in devotional exercises, and during the whole length of the Thursday and the Friday nights, all, even the women and children, with bare heads wept round the Prophet’s tomb. Then the lava current turned northwards. (I remarked on the way to Ohod signs of a lava-field.) This current ran, according to some, three entire months. Al-Kistlani dates its beginning on Friday, 6 Jamadi al-Akhir, and its cessation on Sunday, 27 Rajab: in this period of fifty-two days he includes, it is supposed, the length of its extreme heat. That same year (A.H. 654) is infamous in Al-Islam for other portents, such as the inundation of Baghdad by the Tigris, and the burning of the Prophet’s Mosque. In the next year first appeared the Tartars, who slew Al-Mu’tasim Bi’llah, the Caliph, massacred the Moslems during more than a month, destroyed their books, monuments, and tombs, and stabled their war-steeds in the Mustansariyah College. [FN#4] In this part of Al-Hijaz they have many names for a pass:—Nakb, Saghrah, and Mazik are those best known. [FN#5] This is the palm, capped with large fan-shaped leaves, described by every traveller in Egypt and in the nearer East. [FN#6] The charge for a cup of coffee is one piastre and a half. A pipe-bearer will engage himself for about £1 per mensem: he is always a veteran smoker, and, in these regions, it is an axiom that the flavour of your pipe mainly depends upon the filler. For convenience the Persian Kaliun is generally used. [FN#7] A day’s journey in Arabia is generally reckoned at twenty-four or twenty-five Arab miles. Abulfeda leaves the distance of a Marhalah (or Manzil, a station) undetermined. Al-Idrisi reckons it at thirty miles, but speaks of short as well as long marches. The common literary measures of length are these:—3 Kadam (man’s foot) = 1 Khatwah (pace): 1000 paces = 1 Mil (mile); 3 miles = 1 Farsakh (parasang); and 4 parasangs = 1 Barid or post. The “Burhan i Katia” gives the table thus:—24 finger breadths (or 6 breadths of the clenched hand, from 20 to 24 inches!) = 1 Gaz or yard; 1000 yards = 1 mile; 3 miles = 1 parasang. Some call the four thousand yards measure a Kuroh (the Indian Cos), which, however, is sometimes less by 1000 Gaz. The only ideas of distance known to the Badawi of Al-Hijaz are the fanciful Sa’at or hour, and the uncertain Manzil or halt: the former varies from 2 to 3½ miles, the latter from 15 to 25. [FN#8] “Khabt” is a low plain; “Midan,” “Fayhah,” or “Sath,” a plain generally; and “Batha,” a low, sandy flat. [FN#9] In Burckhardt’s day there were 5,000 souls and 15,000 camels. Capt. Sadlier, who travelled during the war (1819), found the number reduced to 500. The extent of this Caravan has been enormously exaggerated in Europe. I have heard of 15,000, and even of 20,000 men. I include in the 7,000 about 1,200 Persians. They are no longer placed, as Abd al-Karim relates, in the rear of the Caravan, or post of danger. [FN#10] Lane has accurately described this article: in the Hijaz it is sometimes made to resemble a little tent. [FN#11] The vehicle mainly regulates the expense, as it evidences a man’s means. I have heard of a husband and wife leaving Alexandria with three months’ provision and the sum of £5. They would mount a camel, lodge in public buildings when possible, probably be reduced to beggary, and possibly starve upon the road. On the other hand the minimum expenditure,—for necessaries, not donations and luxuries,—of a man who rides in a Takht-rawan from Damascus and back, would be about £1,200. [FN#12] On the line of march the Mahmil, stripped of its embroidered cover, is carried on camel-back, a mere framewood. Even the gilt silver balls and crescent are exchanged for similar articles in brass. [FN#13] Mahattah is a spot where luggage is taken down, i.e., a station. By some Hijazis it is used in the sense of a halting-place, where you spend an hour or two. [FN#14] “Khalik ma al-Badu” is a favourite complimentary saying, among this people, and means that you are no greasy burgher. [FN#15] Even Europeans, in popular parlance, call them “devils.” [FN#16] The Eastern Arabs allay the torments of thirst by a spoonful of clarified butter, carried on journeys in a leathern bottle. Every European traveller has some recipe of his own. One chews a musket-bullet or a small stone. A second smears his legs with butter. Another eats a crust of dry bread, which exacerbates the torments, and afterwards brings relief. A fourth throws water over his face and hands or his legs and feet; a fifth smokes, and a sixth turns his dorsal region (raising his coat-tail) to the fire. I have always found that the only remedy is to be patient and not to talk. The more you drink, the more you require to drink—water or strong waters. But after the first two hours’ abstinence you have mastered the overpowering feeling of thirst, and then to refrain is easy. [FN#17] We carried two small brass guns, which, on the line of march, were dismounted and placed upon camels. At the halt they were restored to their carriages. The Badawin think much of these harmless articles, to which I have seen a gunner apply a match thrice before he could induce a discharge. In a “moral” point of view, therefore, they are far more valuable than our twelve-pounders. [FN#18] Hereabouts the Arabs call these places “Bahr milh” or “Sea of Salt”; in other regions “Bahr bila ma,” or “Waterless Sea.” [FN#19] Being but little read in geology, I submitted, after my return to Bombay, a few specimens collected on the way, to a learned friend, Dr. Carter, Secretary to the Bombay branch of the Royal Asiatic Society. His name is a guarantee of accuracy. [FN#20] The Arabic language has a copious terminology for the mineral as well as the botanical productions of the country: with little alteration it might be made to express all the requirements of our modern geology. [FN#21] NOTE TO THIRD EDITION.—This country may have contained gold; but the superficial formation has long been exhausted. At Cairo I washed some sand brought from the eastern shore of the Red Sea, north of Al-Wijh, and found it worth my while. I had a plan for working the diggings, but H.B.M.’s Consul, Dr. Walne, opined that “gold was becoming too plentiful,” and would not assist me. This wise saying has since then been repeated to me by men who ought to have known better than Dr. Walne.

[p.76]CHAPTER XXV.

THE BADAWIN OF AL-HIJAZ.

THE Arab may be divided into three races—a classification which agrees equally well with genesitic genealogy, the traditions of the country, and the observations of modern physiologists.[FN#1]

[p.77]The first race, indigens or autochthones, are those sub-Caucasian tribes which may still be met with in the province of Mahrah, and generally along the coast between Maskat and Hazramaut. [FN#2] The Mahrah, the Janabah, and the Gara especially show a low development, for which hardship and privation alone will not satisfactorily account.[FN#3] These are Arab al-Aribah for whose inferiority oriental fable accounts as usual by thaumaturgy.

The principal advenæ are the Noachians, a great Chaldaean or Mesopotamian tribe which entered Arabia about

[p.78] 2200 A.C., and by slow and gradual encroachments drove before them the ancient owners and seized the happier lands of the Peninsula. The great Anzah and the Nijdi families are types of this race, which is purely Caucasian, and shows a highly nervous temperament, together with those signs of “blood” which distinguish even the lower animals, the horse and the camel, the greyhound and the goat of Arabia. These advenae would correspond with the Arab al-Mutarribah or Arabicized Arabs of the eastern historians.[FN#4]

The third family, an ancient and a noble race dating from A.C. 1900, and typified in history by Ishmael, still occupies the so-called Sinaitic Peninsula. These Arabs, however, do not, and never did, extend beyond the limits of the mountains, where, still dwelling in the presence of their brethren, they retain all the wild customs and the untamable spirit of their forefathers. They are distinguished from the pure stock by an admixture of Egyptian blood,[FN#5]

[p.79] and by preserving the ancient characteristics of the Nilotic family. The Ishmaelities are sub-Caucasian, and are denoted in history as the Arab al-Mustarribah, the insititious or half-caste Arab.

Oriental ethnography, which, like most Eastern sciences, luxuriates in nomenclative distinction, recognises a fourth race under the name of Arab al-Mustajamah. These “barbarized Arabs” are now represented by such a population as that of Meccah.

That Aus and Khazraj, the Himyaritic tribes which emigrated to Al-Hijaz, mixed with the Amalikah, the Jurham, and the Katirah, also races from Al-Yaman, and with the Hebrews, a northern branch of the Semitic family, we have ample historical evidence. And they who know how immutable is race in the Desert, will scarcely doubt that the Badawi of Al-Hijaz preserves in purity the blood transmitted to him by his ancestors.[FN#6]

[p.80] I will not apologise for entering into details concerning the personale of the Badawin[FN#7]; a precise physical portrait of race, it has justly been remarked, is the sole deficiency in the pages of Bruce and of Burckhardt.

The temperament of the Hijazi is not unfrequently the pure nervous, as the height of the forehead and the fine texture of the hair prove. Sometimes the bilious, and rarely the sanguine, elements predominate; the lymphatic I never saw. He has large nervous centres, and well-formed spine and brain, a conformation favourable to longevity. Bartema well describes his colour as a “dark leonine”; it varies from the deepest Spanish to a chocolate hue, and its varieties are attributed by the people to blood. The skin is hard, dry, and soon wrinkled by exposure. The xanthous complexion is rare, though not unknown in cities, but the leucous does not exist. The crinal hair is frequently lightened by bleaching, and the pilar is browner than the crinal. The voice is strong and clear, but rather barytone than bass: in anger it becomes a shrill chattering like the cry of a wild animal. The look of a chief is dignified and grave even to pensiveness; the “respectable man’s” is self-sufficient and fierce; the lower orders look ferocious, stupid, and inquisitive. Yet there is not much difference in this point between men of the same tribe, who have similar pursuits which engender

[p.81] similar passions. Expression is the grand diversifier of appearance among civilised people: in the Desert it knows few varieties.

The Badawi cranium is small, ooidal, long, high, narrow, and remarkable in the occiput for the development of Gall’s second propensity: the crown slopes upwards towards the region of firmness, which is elevated; whilst the sides are flat to a fault. The hair, exposed to sun, wind, and rain, acquires a coarseness not natural to it[FN#8]: worn in Kurun[FN#9]—ragged elf-locks,—hanging down to the breast, or shaved in the form Shushah, a skull-cap of hair, nothing can be wilder than its appearance. The face is made to be a long oval, but want of flesh detracts from its regularity. The forehead is high, broad, and retreating: the upper portion is moderately developed; but nothing can be finer than the lower brow, and the frontal sinuses stand out, indicating bodily strength and activity of character. The temporal fossa are deep, the bones are salient, and the elevated zygomata combined with the “lantern-jaw,” often give a “death’s-head” appearance to the face. The eyebrows are long, bushy, and crooked, broken, as it were, at the angle where “Order” is supposed to be, and bent in sign of thoughtfulness. Most popular writers, following De Page,[FN#10] describe the Arab eye as large, ardent,

[p.82] and black. The Badawi of the Hijaz, and indeed the race generally, has a small eye, round, restless, deep-set, and fiery, denoting keen inspection with an ardent temperament and an impassioned character. Its colour is dark brown or green-brown, and the pupil is often speckled. The habit of pursing up the skin below the orbits, and half closing the lids to exclude glare, plants the outer angles with premature crows’-feet. Another peculiarity is the sudden way in which the eye opens, especially under excitement. This, combined with its fixity of glance, forms an expression now of lively fierceness, then of exceeding sternness; whilst the narrow space between the orbits impresses the countenance in repose with an intelligence not destitute of cunning. As a general rule, however, the expression of the Badawi face is rather dignity than that cunning for which the Semitic race is celebrated, and there are lines about the mouth in variance with the stern or the fierce look of the brow. The ears are like those of Arab horses, small, well-cut, “castey,” and elaborate, with many elevations and depressions. The nose is pronounced, generally aquiline, but sometimes straight like those Greek statues which have been treated as prodigious exaggerations of the facial angle. For the most part, it is a well-made feature with delicate nostrils, below which the septum appears: in anger they swell and open like a blood mare’s. I have, however, seen, in not a few instances, pert and offensive “pugs.” Deep furrows descend from the wings of the nose, showing an uncertain temper, now too grave, then too gay. The mouth is irregular. The lips are either bordes, denoting rudeness and want of taste, or they form a mere line. In the latter case there is an appearance of undue development in the upper portion of the countenance, especially when the jaws are ascetically thin, and the chin weakly retreats. The latter [p.83] feature, however, is generally well and strongly made. The teeth, as usual among Orientals, are white, even, short and broad—indications of strength. Some tribes trim their mustaches according to the “Sunnat”; the Shafe’i often shave them, and many allow them to hang Persian-like over the lips. The beard is represented by two tangled tufts upon the chin; where whisker should be, the place is either bare or is thinly covered with straggling pile.

The Badawin of Al-Hijaz are short men, about the height of the Indians near Bombay, but weighing on an average a stone more. As usual in this stage of society, stature varies little; you rarely see a giant, and scarcely ever a dwarf. Deformity is checked by the Spartan restraint upon population, and no weakly infant can live through a Badawi life. The figure, though spare, is square and well knit; fulness of limb seldom appears but about spring, when milk abounds: I have seen two or three muscular figures, but never a fat man. The neck is sinewy, the chest broad, the flank thin, and the stomach in-drawn; the legs, though fleshless, are well made, especially when the knee and ankle are not bowed by too early riding. The shins do not bend cucumber-like to the front as in the African race.[FN#11] The arms are thin, with muscles like whipcords, and the hands and feet are, in point of size and delicacy, a link between Europe and India. As in the Celt, the Arab thumb is remarkably long, extending almost to the first joint of the index,[FN#12] which, with its easy rotation, makes it a perfect prehensile instrument: the palm also is fleshless, small-boned, and [p.84] elastic. With his small active figure, it is not strange that the wildest Badawi gait should be pleasing; he neither unfits himself for walking, nor distorts his ankles by turning out his toes according to the farcical rule of fashion, and his shoulders are not dressed like a drill-sergeant’s, to throw all the weight of the body upon the heels. Yet there is no slouch in his walk; it is light and springy, and errs only in one point, sometimes becoming a strut.

Such is the Badawi, and such he has been for ages. The national type has been preserved by systematic intermarriage. The wild men do not refuse their daughters to a stranger, but the son-in-law would be forced to settle among them, and this life, which has its charms for a while, ends in becoming wearisome. Here no evil results are anticipated from the union of first cousins, and the experience of ages and of a mighty nation may be trusted. Every Badawi has a right to marry his father’s brother’s daughter before she is given to a stranger; hence “cousin” (Bint Amm) in polite phrase signifies a “wife.[FN#13]” Our physiologists[FN#14] adduce the Sangre Azul of Spain and the case of the lower animals to prove that degeneracy inevitably follows “breeding-in.[FN#15]”

[p.85] Either they have theorised from insufficient facts, or civilisation and artificial living exercise some peculiar influence, or Arabia is a solitary exception to a general rule. The fact which I have mentioned is patent to every Eastern traveller.

After this long description, the reader will perceive with pleasure that we are approaching an interesting theme, the first question of mankind to the wanderer—“What are the women like?” Truth compels me to state that the women of the Hijazi Badawin are by no means comely. Although the Benu Amur boast of some pretty girls, yet they are far inferior to the high-bosomed beauties of Nijd. And I warn all men that if they run to Al-Hijaz in search of the charming face which appears in my sketch-book as “a Badawi girl,” they will be bitterly disappointed: the dress was Arab, but it was worn by a fairy of the West. The Hijazi woman’s eyes are fierce, her features harsh, and her face haggard; like all people of the South, she soon fades, and in old age her appearance is truly witch-like. Withered crones abound in the camps, where old men are seldom seen. The sword and the sun are fatal to

“A green old age, unconscious of decay.”

The manners of the Badawin are free and simple: “vulgarity” and affectation, awkwardness and embarrassment, are weeds of civilised growth, unknown to the People of the Desert.[FN#16] Yet their manners are sometimes dashed with a strange ceremoniousness. When two frends meet, they either embrace or both extend the right hands, clapping palm to palm; their foreheads are either pressed together, or their heads are moved from side to side, whilst for minutes together mutual inquiries are made and answered. It is a breach of decorum, even when eating, to turn the back upon a person, and if a Badawi

[p.86] does it, he intends an insult. When a man prepares coffee, he drinks the first cup: the Sharbat Kajari of the Persians, and the Sulaymani of Egypt,[FN#17] render this precaution necessary. As a friend approaches the camp,—it is not done to strangers for fear of startling them,—those who catch sight of him shout out his name, and gallop up saluting with lances or firing matchlocks in the air. This is the well-known La’ab al-Barut, or gunpowder play. Badawin are generally polite in language, but in anger temper is soon shown, and, although life be in peril, the foulest epithets—dog, drunkard, liar, and infidel—are discharged like pistol-shots by both disputants.

The best character of the Badawi is a truly noble compound of determination, gentleness, and generosity. Usually they are a mixture of worldly cunning and great simplicity, sensitive to touchiness, good-tempered souls, solemn and dignified withal, fond of a jest, yet of a grave turn of mind, easily managed by a laugh and a soft word, and placable after passion, though madly revengeful after injury. It has been sarcastically said of the Benu-Harb that there is not a man

“Que s’il ne violoit, voloit, tuoit, bruloit Ne fut assez bonne personne.”

The reader will inquire, like the critics of a certain modern humourist, how the fabric of society can be supported by such material. In the first place, it is a kind of societe leonine, in which the fiercest, the strongest, and the craftiest obtains complete mastery over his fellows, and this gives a

[p.87] keystone to the arch. Secondly, there is the terrible blood-feud, which even the most reckless fear for their posterity. And, thirdly, though the revealed law of the Koran, being insufficient for the Desert, is openly disregarded, the immemorial customs of the Kazi al-Arab (the Judge of the Arabs)[FN#18] form a system stringent in the extreme.

The valour of the Badawi is fitful and uncertain. Man is by nature an animal of prey, educated by the complicated relations of society, but readily relapsing into his old habits. Ravenous and sanguinary propensities grow apace in the Desert, but for the same reason the recklessness of civilisation is unknown there. Savages and semi-barbarians are always cautious, because they have nothing valuable but their lives and limbs. The civilised man, on the contrary, has a hundred wants or hopes or aims, without which existence has for him no charms. Arab ideas of bravery do not prepossess us. Their romances, full of foolhardy feats and impossible exploits, might charm for a time, but would not become the standard works of a really fighting people.[FN#19] Nor would a truly valorous race admire

[p.88] the cautious freebooters who safely fire down upon Caravans from their eyries. Arab wars, too, are a succession of skirmishes, in which five hundred men will retreat after losing a dozen of their number. In this partisan-fighting the first charge secures a victory, and the vanquished fly till covered by the shades of night. Then come cries and taunts of women, deep oaths, wild poetry, excitement, and reprisals, which will probably end in the flight of the former victor. When peace is to be made, both parties count up their dead, and the usual blood-money is paid for excess on either side. Generally, however, the feud endures till, all becoming weary of it, some great man, as the Sharif of Meccah, is called upon to settle the terms of a treaty, which is nothing but an armistice. After a few months’ peace, a glance or a word will draw blood, for these hates are old growths, and new dissensions easily shoot up from them.

But, contemptible though their battles be, the Badawin are not cowards. The habit of danger in raids and blood-feuds, the continual uncertainty of existence, the desert, the chase, the hard life and exposure to the air, blunting the nervous system; the presence and the practice of weapons, horsemanship, sharpshooting, and martial exercises, habituate them to look death in the face like men, and powerful motives will make them heroes. The English, it is said, fight willingly for liberty, our neighbours for glory; the Spaniard fights, or rather fought, for religion and the Pundonor; and the Irishman fights for the fun of fighting. Gain and revenge draw the Arab’s sword; yet then he uses it fitfully enough, without the gay gallantry of the [p.89] French or the persistent stay of the Anglo-Saxon. To become desperate he must have the all-powerful stimulants of honour and of fanaticism. Frenzied by the insults of his women, or by the fear of being branded as a coward, he is capable of any mad deed.[FN#20] And the obstinacy produced by strong religious impressions gives a steadfastness to his spirit unknown to mere enthusiasm. The history of the Badawi tells this plainly. Some unobserving travellers, indeed, have mistaken his exceeding cautiousness for stark cowardice. The incongruity is easily read by one who understands the principles of Badawi warfare; with them, as amongst the Red Indians, one death dims a victory. And though reckless when their passions are thoroughly aroused, though heedless of danger when the voice of honour calls them, the Badawin will not sacrifice themselves for light motives. Besides, they have, as has been said, another and a potent incentive to cautiousness. Whenever peace is concluded, they must pay for victory.

There are two things which tend to soften the ferocity of Badawi life. These are, in the first place, intercourse with citizens, who frequently visit and entrust their children to the people of the Black tents ; and, secondly, the social position of the women.

The Rev. Charles Robertson, author of a certain

[p.90] “Lecture on Poetry, addressed to Working Men,” asserts that Passion became Love under the influence of Christianity, and that the idea of a Virgin Mother spread over the sex a sanctity unknown to the poetry or to the philosophy of Greece and Rome.[FN#21] Passing over the objections of deified Eros and Immortal Psyche, and of the Virgin Mother—symbol of moral purity—being common to every old and material faith,[FN#22] I believe that all the noble tribes of savages display the principle. Thus we might expect to find, wherever the fancy, the imagination, and the ideality are strong, some traces of a sentiment innate in the human organisation. It exists, says Mr. Catlin, amongst the North American Indians, and even the Gallas and the Somal of Africa are not wholly destitute of it. But when the barbarian becomes a semi-barbarian, as are the most polished Orientals, or as were the classical authors of Greece and Rome, then women fall from their proper place in society, become mere articles of luxury, and sink into the lowest moral condition. In the next stage, “civilisation,” they rise again to be “highly accomplished,” and not a little frivolous.

[p.91]Miss Martineau, when travelling through Egypt, once visited a harim, and there found, among many things, especially in ignorance of books and of book-making, materials for a heart-broken wail over the degradation of her sex. The learned lady indulges, too, in sundry strong and unsavoury comparisons between the harim and certain haunts of vice in Europe. On the other hand, male travellers generally speak lovingly of the harim. Sonnini, no admirer of Egypt, expatiates on “the generous virtues, the examples of magnanimity and affectionate attachment, the sentiments ardent, yet gentle, forming a delightful unison with personal charms in the harims of the Mamluks.”

As usual, the truth lies somewhere between the two extremes. Human nature, all the world over, differs but in degree. Everywhere women may be “capricious, coy, and hard to please” in common conjunctures: in the hour of need they will display devoted heroism. Any chronicler of the Afghan war will bear witness that warm hearts, noble sentiments, and an overflowing kindness to the poor, the weak, and the unhappy are found even in a harim. Europe now knows that the Moslem husband provides separate apartments and a distinct establishment for each of his wives, unless, as sometimes happens, one be an old woman and the other a child. And, confessing that envy, hatred, and malice often flourish in polygamy, the Moslem asks, Is monogamy open to no objections? As far as my limited observations go, polyandry is the only state of society in which jealousy and quarrels about the sex are the exception and not the rule of life.

In quality of doctor I have seen a little and heard much of the harim. It often resembles a European home composed of a man, his wife, and his mother. And I have seen in the West many a “happy fireside” fitter to make Miss Martineau’s heart ache than any harim in Grand Cairo.

[p.92] Were it not evident that the spiritualising of sexuality by sentiment, of propensity by imagination, is universal among the highest orders of mankind,—c’est l’etoffe de la nature que l’imagination a brodee, says Voltaire,—I should attribute the origin of “love” to the influence of the Arabs’ poetry and chivalry upon European ideas rather than to mediaeval Christianity. Certain “Fathers of the Church,” it must be remembered, did not believe that women have souls. The Moslems never went so far.

In nomad life, tribes often meet for a time, live together whilst pasturage lasts, and then separate perhaps for a generation. Under such circumstances, youths who hold with the Italian that

“Perduto e tutto il tempo Che in amor non si spende,”

will lose heart to maidens, whom possibly, by the laws of the clan, they may not marry,[FN#23] and the light o’ love will fly her home. The fugitives must brave every danger, for revenge, at all times the Badawi’s idol, now becomes the lodestar of his existence. But the Arab lover will dare all consequences. “Men have died and the worms have eaten them, but not for love,” may be true in the West: it is false in the East. This is attested in every tale where love, and not ambition, is the groundwork of the narrative.[FN#24] And nothing can be more tender, more

[p.93] pathetic than the use made of these separations and long absences by the old Arab poets. Whoever peruses the Suspended Poem of Labid, will find thoughts at once so plaintive and so noble, that even Dr. Carlyle’s learned verse cannot wholly deface their charm.

The warrior-bard returns from afar. He looks upon the traces of hearth and home still furrowing the Desert ground. In bitterness of spirit he checks himself from calling aloud upon his lovers and his friends. He melts at the remembrance of their departure, and long indulges in the absorbing theme. Then he strengthens himself by the thought of Nawara’s inconstancy, how she left him and never thought of him again. He impatiently dwells upon the charms of the places which detain her, advocates flight from the changing lover and the false friend, and, in the exultation with which he feels his swift dromedary start under him upon her rapid course, he seems to seek and finds some consolation for women’s perfidy and forgetfulness. Yet he cannot abandon Nawara’s name or memory. Again he dwells with yearning upon scenes of past felicity, and he boasts of his prowess—a fresh reproach to her,—of his gentle birth, and of his hospitality. He ends with an encomium upon his clan, to which he attributes, as a noble Arab should, all the virtues of man. This is Goldsmith’s deserted village in Al-Hijaz. But the Arab, with equal simplicity and pathos, has a fire, a force of language, and a depth of feeling, which the Irishman, admirable as his verse is, could never rival.

As the author of the Peninsular War well remarks, women in troubled times, throwing off their accustomed feebleness and frivolity, become helpmates meet for man. The same is true of pastoral life. [FN#25] Here, between the

[p.94] extremes of fierceness and sensibility, the weaker sex, remedying its great want, power, rises itself by courage, physical as well as moral. In the early days of Al-Islam, if history be credible, Arabia had a race of heroines. Within the last century, Ghaliyah, the wife of a Wahhabi chief, opposed Mohammed Ali himself in many a bloody field. A few years ago, when Ibn Asm, popularly called Ibn Rumi, chief of the Zubayd clan about Rabigh, was treacherously slain by the Turkish general, Kurdi Osman, his sister, a fair young girl, determined to revenge him. She fixed upon the “Arafat-day” of pilgrimage for the accomplishment of her designs, disguised herself in male attire, drew her kerchief in the form Lisam over the lower part of her face, and with lighted match awaited her enemy. The Turk, however, was not present, and the girl was arrested to win for herself a local reputation equal to the “maid” of Salamanca. Thus it is that the Arab has learned to swear that great oath “by the honour of my women.”

The Badawin are not without a certain Platonic affection, which they call Hawa (or Ishk) uzri—pardonable love.[FN#26] They draw the fine line between amant and amoureux: this is derided by the tow[n]speople, little suspecting how much such a custom says in favour of the wild men. Arabs, like other Orientals, hold that, in such matters, man is saved, not by faith, but by want of faith. They have also a saying not unlike ours—

“She partly is to blame who has been tried; He comes too near who comes to be denied.”

[p.95]The evil of this system is that they, like certain Southerns—pensano sempre al male—always suspect, which may be worldly-wise, and also always show their suspicions, which is assuredly foolish. For thus they demoralise their women, who might be kept in the way of right by self-respect and by a sense of duty.

From ancient periods of the Arab’s history we find him practising knight-errantry, the wildest form of chivalry.[FN#27] “The Songs of Antar,” says the author of the “Crescent and the Cross,” “show little of the true chivalric spirit.” What thinks the reader of sentiments like these[FN#28]? “This valiant man,” remarks Antar (who was “ever interested for the weaker sex,”) “hath defended the honour of women.” We read in another place, “Mercy, my lord, is the noblest quality of the noble.” Again, “it is the most ignominious of deeds to take free-born women prisoners.” “Bear not malice, O Shibub,” quoth the hero, “for of malice good never came.” Is there no true greatness in this sentiment?—“Birth is the boast of the faineant; noble is the youth who beareth every ill, who clotheth himself in mail during the noontide heat, and who wandereth through the outer darkness of night.” And why does the “knight of knights” love Ibla? Because “she is blooming as the sun at dawn, with hair black as the midnight shades, with Paradise in her eye, her bosom an enchantment, and a form waving like the tamarisk when the soft wind blows from the hills of Nijd”? Yes! but his chest expands also with the thoughts of her “faith, purity, and affection,”—it is her moral as well as her material excellence that makes her [p.96] the hero’s “hope, and hearing, and sight.” Briefly, in Antar I discern

“a love exalted high, By all the glow of chivalry;”

and I lament to see so many intelligent travellers misjudging the Arab after a superficial experience of a few debased Syrians or Sinaites. The true children of Antar, my Lord Lindsay, have not “ceased to be gentlemen.”

In the days of ignorance, it was the custom for Badawin, when tormented by the tender passion, which seems to have attacked them in the form of “possession,” for long years to sigh and wail and wander, doing the most truculent deeds to melt the obdurate fair. When Arabia Islamized, the practice changed its element for proselytism.

The Fourth Caliph is fabled to have travelled far, redressing the injured, punishing the injurer, preaching to the infidel, and especially protecting women—the chief end and aim of knighthood. The Caliph Al-Mu’tasim heard in the assembly of his courtiers that a woman of Sayyid family had been taken prisoner by a “Greek barbarian” of Ammoria. The man on one occasion struck her: when she cried “Help me, O Mu’tasim!” and the clown said derisively, “Wait till he cometh upon his pied steed!” The chivalrous prince arose, sealed up the wine-cup which he held in his hand, took oath to do his knightly devoir, and on the morrow started for Ammoria with seventy thousand men, each mounted on a piebald charger. Having taken the place, he entered it, exclaiming, “Labbayki, Labbayki!”—“Here am I at thy call!” He struck off the caitiff’s head, released the lady with his own hands, ordered the cupbearer to bring the sealed bowl, and drank from it, exclaiming, “Now, indeed, wine is good!”

To conclude this part of the subject with another far-famed instance. When Al-Mutanabbi, the poet, prophet, and warrior of Hams (A.H. 354) started together with his

[p.97] son on their last journey, the father proposed to seek a place of safety for the night. “Art thou the Mutanabbi,” exclaimed his slave, “who wrote these lines,—

“‘I am known to the night, the wild, and the steed, To the guest, and the sword, to the paper and reed[FN#29]’?”

The poet, in reply, lay down to sleep on Tigris’ bank, in a place haunted by thieves, and, disdaining flight, lost his life during the hours of darkness.

It is the existence of this chivalry among the “Children of Antar” which makes the society of Badawin (“damned saints,” perchance, and “honourable villains,”) so delightful to the traveller who[,] like the late Haji Wali (Dr. Wallin), understands and is understood by them. Nothing more naïve than his lamentations at finding himself in the “loathsome company of Persians,” or among Arab townspeople, whose “filthy and cowardly minds” he contrasts with the “high and chivalrous spirit of the true Sons of the Desert.” Your guide will protect you with blade and spear, even against his kindred, and he expects you to do the same for him. You may give a man the lie, but you must lose no time in baring your sword. If involved in dispute with overwhelming numbers, you address some elder, Dakhil-ak ya Shaykh!—(I am) thy protected, O Sir,—and he will espouse your quarrel with greater heat and energy, indeed, than if it were his own.[FN#30] But why multiply instances?

The language of love and war and all excitement is poetry, and here, again, the Badawi excels. Travellers complain that the wild men have ceased to sing. This is true if “poet” be limited to a few authors whose existence

[p.98] everywhere depends upon the accidents of patronage or political occurrences. A far stronger evidence of poetic feeling is afforded by the phraseology of the Arab, and the highly imaginative turn of his commonest expressions. Destitute of the poetic taste, as we define it, he certainly is: as in the Milesian, wit and fancy, vivacity and passion, are too strong for reason and judgment, the reins which guide Apollo’s car.[FN#31] And although the Badawin no longer boast a Labid or a Maysunah, yet they are passionately fond of their ancient bards.[FN#32] A man skilful in reading Al-Mutanabbi and the suspended Poems would be received by them with the honours paid by civilisation to the travelling millionaire.[FN#33] And their elders have a goodly store of ancient and modern war songs, legends, and love ditties which all enjoy.

[p.99]I cannot well explain the effect of Arab poetry to one who has not visited the Desert.[FN#34] Apart from the pomp of words, and the music of the sound,[FN#35] there is a dreaminess of idea and a haze thrown over the object, infinitely attractive, but indescribable. Description,

[p.100] indeed, would rob the song of indistinctness, its essence. To borrow a simile from a sister art; the Arab poet sets before the mental eye, the dim grand outlines of picture,—which must be filled up by the reader, guided only by a few glorious touches, powerfully standing out, and by the sentiment which the scene is intended to express;—whereas, we Europeans and moderns, by stippling and minute touches, produce a miniature on a large scale so objective as to exhaust rather than to arouse reflection. As the poet is a creator, the Arab’s is poetry, the European’s versical description. [FN#36] The language, “like a faithful wife, following the mind and giving birth to its offspring,” and free from that “luggage of particles” which clogs our modern tongues, leaves a mysterious vagueness between the relation of word to word, which materially assists the sentiment, not the sense, of the poem. When verbs and nouns have, each one, many different significations, only the radical or general idea suggests itself.[FN#37] Rich and varied synonyms, illustrating the finest shades of meaning, are artfully used; now scattered to startle us by distinctness, now to form as it were a star about which dimly seen satellites revolve. And, to cut short a disquisition

[p.101] which might be prolonged indefinitely, there is in the Semitic dialect a copiousness of rhyme which leaves the poet almost unfettered to choose the desired expression.[FN#38] Hence it is that a stranger speaking Arabic becomes poetical as naturally as he would be witty in French and philosophic in German. Truly spake Mohammed al-Damiri, “Wisdom hath alighted upon three things—the brain of the Franks, the hands of the Chinese, and the tongues of the Arabs.”

The name of Harami—brigand—is still honourable among the Hijazi Badawin. Slain in raid or foray, a man is said to die Ghandur, or a brave. He, on the other hand, who is lucky enough, as we should express it, to die in his bed, is called Fatis (carrion, the corps creve of the Klephts); his weeping mother will exclaim, “O that my son had perished of a cut throat!” and her attendant crones will suggest, with deference, that such evil came of the will of Allah. It is told of the Lahabah, a sept of the Auf near Rabigh, that a girl will refuse even her cousin unless, in the absence of other opportunities, he plunder some article from the Hajj Caravan in front of the Pasha’s links. Detected twenty years ago, the delinquent would have been impaled; now he escapes with a rib-roasting. Fear of the blood-feud, and the certainty of a shut road to future travellers, prevent the Turks proceeding to extremes. They conceal their weakness by pretending that [p.102] the Sultan hesitates to wage a war of extermination with the thieves of the Holy Land.

It is easy to understand this respect for brigands. Whoso revolts against society requires an iron mind in an iron body, and these mankind instinctively admires, however misdirected be their energies. Thus, in all imaginative countries, the brigand is a hero; even the assassin who shoots his victim from behind a hedge appeals to the fancy in Tipperary or on the Abruzzian hills. Romance invests his loneliness with grandeur; if he have a wife or a friend’s wife, romance becomes doubly romantic, and a tithe of the superfluity robbed from the rich and bestowed upon the poor will win to Gasparoni the hearts of a people. The true Badawi style of plundering, with its numerous niceties of honour and gentlemanly manners, gives the robber a consciousness of moral rectitude. “Strip off that coat, O certain person! and that turband,” exclaims the highwayman, “they are wanted by the daughter of my paternal uncle (wife).” You will (of course, if necessary) lend ready ear to an order thus politely attributed to the wants of the fair sex. If you will add a few obliging expressions to the bundle, and offer Latro a cup of coffee and a pipe, you will talk half your toilette back to your own person; and if you can quote a little poetry, you will part the best of friends, leaving perhaps only a pair of sandals behind you. But should you hesitate, Latro, lamenting the painful necessity, touches up your back with the heel of his spear. If this hint suffice not, he will make things plain by the lance’s point, and when blood shows, the tiger-part of humanity appears. Between Badawin, to be tamely plundered, especially of the mare,[FN#39] is a lasting disgrace; a man of

[p.103] family lays down his life rather than yield even to overpowering numbers. This desperation has raised the courage of the Badawin to high repute amongst the settled Arabs, who talk of single braves capable, like the Homeric heroes, of overpowering three hundred men.

I omit general details about the often-described Sar, or Vendetta. The price of blood is $800 = 200l., or rather that sum imperfectly expressed by live stock. All the Khamsah or A’amam, blood relations of the slayer, assist to make up the required amount, rating each animal at three or four times its proper value. On such occasions violent scenes arise from the conflict of the Arab’s two pet passions, avarice and revenge. The “avenger of blood” longs to cut the foe’s throat. On the other hand, how let slip an opportunity of enriching himself? His covetousness is intense, as are all his passions. He has always a project of buying a new dromedary, or of investing capital in some marvellous colt; the consequence is, that he is insatiable. Still he receives blood-money with a feeling of shame; and if it be offered to an old woman,—the most revengeful variety of our species, be it remarked,—she will dash it to the ground and clutch her knife, and fiercely swear by Allah that she will not “eat” her son’s blood.

The Badawi considers himself a man only when mounted on horseback, lance in hand, bound for a foray or a fray, and carolling some such gaiety as—

“A steede! a steede of matchlesse speede! A sword of metal keene! All else to noble minds is drosse, All else on earth is meane.”

Even in his sports he affects those that imitate war. Preserving the instinctive qualities which lie dormant in civilisation, he is an admirable sportsman. The children,

[p.104] men in miniature, begin with a rude system of gymnastics when they can walk. “My young ones play upon the backs of camels,” was the reply made to me by a Jahayni Badawi when offered some Egyptian plaything. The men pass their time principally in hawking, shooting, and riding. The “Sakr,[FN#40]” I am told, is the only falcon in general use; they train it to pursue the gazelle, which

[p.105] greyhounds pull down when fatigued. I have heard much of their excellent marksmanship, but saw only moderate practice with a long matchlock rested and fired at standing objects. Double-barreled guns are rare amongst them.[FN#41] Their principal weapons are matchlocks and firelocks, pistols, javelins, spears, swords, and the dagger called Jambiyah; the sling and the bow have long been given up. The guns come from Egypt, Syria, and Turkey; for the Badawi cannot make, although he can repair, this arm. He particularly values a good old barrel seven spans long, and would rather keep it than his coat; consequently, a family often boasts of four or five guns, which descend from generation to generation. Their price varies from two to sixty dollars. The Badawin collect nitre in the country, make excellent charcoal, and import sulphur from Egypt and India; their powder, however, is coarse and weak. For hares and birds they cut up into slugs a bar of lead hammered out to a convenient size, and they cast bullets in moulds. They are fond of ball-practice, firing, as every sensible man does, at short distances, and striving at extreme precision. They are ever backing themselves with wagers, and will shoot for a sheep, the loser inviting his friends to a feast: on festivals they boil the head, and use it as mark and prize. Those who affect excellence are said to fire at a bullet hanging by a thread; curious, however, to relate, the Badawin of Al-Hijaz have but just learned the art, general in Persia and Barbary, of shooting from horseback at speed.

Pistols have been lately introduced into the Hijaz, and are not common amongst the Badawin. The citizens incline to this weapon, as it is derived from Constantinople. In the Desert a tolerable pair with flint locks may be worth thirty dollars, ten times their price in England.

[p.106]The spears[FN#42] called Kanat, or reeds, are made of male bamboos imported from India. They are at least twelve feet long, iron shod, with a tapering point, beneath which are one or two tufts of black ostrich feathers.[FN#43] Besides the Mirzak, or javelin, they have a spear called Shalfah, a bamboo or a palm stick garnished with a head about the breadth of a man’s hand.

No good swords are fabricated in Al-Hijaz. The Khalawiyah and other Desert clans have made some poor attempts at blades. They are brought from Persia, India, and Egypt; but I never saw anything of value.

The Darakah, or shield, also comes from India. It is the common Cutch article, supposed to be made of rhinoceros hide, and displaying as much brass knob and gold wash as possible. The Badawin still use in the remoter parts Diraa, or coats of mail, worn by horsemen over buff jackets.

The dagger is made in Al-Yaman and other places: it has a vast variety of shapes, each of which, as usual, has its proper names. Generally they are but little curved (whereas the Gadaymi of Al-Yaman and Hazramaut is almost a semicircle), with tapering blade, wooden handle, and scabbard of the same material overlaid with brass. At the point of the scabbard is a round knob, and the weapon is so long, that a man when walking cannot swing his right

[p.107] arm. In narrow places he must enter sideways. But it is the mode always to appear in dagger, and the weapon, like the French soldier’s coupe-choux, is really useful for such bloodless purposes as cutting wood and gathering grass. In price they vary from one to thirty dollars.

The Badawin boast greatly of sword-play; but it is apparently confined to delivering a tremendous slash, and to jumping away from the return-cut instead of parrying either with sword or shield. The citizens have learned the Turkish scimitar-play, which, in grotesqueness and general absurdity, rivals the East Indian school. None of these Orientals knows the use of the point which characterises the highest school of swordsmanship.

The Hijazi Badawin have no game of chance, and dare not, I am told, ferment the juice of the Daum palm, as proximity to Aden has taught the wild men of Al-Yaman.[FN#44] Their music is in a rude state. The principal instrument is the Tabl, or kettle-drum, which is of two kinds: one, the smaller, used at festivals; the other, a large copper “tom-tom,” for martial purposes, covered with leather, and played upon, pulpit-like, with fist, and not with stick. Besides which, they have the one-stringed Rubabah, or guitar, that “monotonous but charming instrument of the Desert.” In another place I have described their dancing, which is an ignoble spectacle.

The Badawin of Al-Hijaz have all the knowledge necessary for procuring and protecting the riches of savage life. They are perfect in the breeding, the training, and the selling of cattle. They know sufficient of astronomy to guide themselves by night, and are acquainted

[p.108] with the names of the principal stars. Their local memory is wonderful. And such is their instinct in the art of asar, or tracking, that it is popularly said of the Zubayd clan, which lives between Meccah and Al-Madinah, a man will lose a she-camel and know her four-year-old colt by its foot. Always engaged in rough exercises and perilous journeys, they have learned a kind of farriery and a simple system of surgery. In cases of fracture they bind on splints with cloth bands, and the patient drinks camel’s milk and clarified butter till he is cured. Cuts are carefully washed, sprinkled with meal gunpowder, and sewn up. They dress gunshot wounds with raw camel’s flesh, and rely entirely upon nature and diet. When bitten by snakes or stung by scorpions, they scarify the wound with a razor, recite a charm, and apply to it a dressing of garlic.[FN#45] The wealthy have Fiss or ring-stones, brought from India, and used with a formula of prayer to extract venom. Some few possess the Tariyak (Theriack) of Al-Irak—the great counter-poison, internal as well as external, of the East. The poorer classes all wear the Za’al or Hibas of Al-Yaman; two yarns of black sheep’s wool tied round the leg, under the knee and above the ankle. When bitten, the sufferer tightens these cords above the injured part, which he immediately scarifies; thus they act as tourniquets. These ligatures also cure cramps—and there is no other remedy. The Badawi knowledge of medicine is unusually limited in this part of Arabia, where even simples are not required by a people who rise with dawn, eat little, always breathe Desert air, and “at night make the camels their curfew.” The great tonic is clarified butter, and the Kay, or actual cautery, is used even for rheumatism. This counter-irritant, together with a curious and artful phlebotomy,

[p.109] blood being taken, as by the Italians, from the toes, the fingers, and other parts of the body, are the Arab panaceas. They treat scald-head with grease and sulphur. Ulcers, which here abound, without, however, assuming the fearful type of the “Helcoma Yemenense,” are cauterised and stimulated by verdigris. The evil of which Fracastorius sang is combated by sudorifics, by unguents of oil and sulphur, and especially by the sand-bath. The patient, buried up to the neck, remains in the sun fasting all day; in the evening he is allowed a little food. This rude course of “packing” lasts for about a month. It suits some constitutions; but others, especially Europeans, have tried the sand-bath and died of fever. Mules’ teeth, roasted and imperfectly pounded, remove cataract. Teeth are extracted by the farrier’s pincers, and the worm which throughout the East is supposed to produce toothache, falls by fumigation. And, finally, after great fatigue, or when suffering from cold, the body is copiously greased with clarified butter and exposed to a blazing fire.

Mohammed and his followers conquered only the more civilised Badawin; and there is even to this day little or no religion amongst the wild people, except those on the coast or in the vicinity of cities. The faith of the Badawi comes from Al-Islam, whose hold is weak. But his customs and institutions, the growth of his climate, his nature, and his wants, are still those of his ancestors, cherished ere Meccah had sent forth a Prophet, and likely to survive the day when every vestige of the Ka’abah shall have disappeared. Of this nature are the Hijazi’s pagan oaths, his heathenish names (few being Moslem except “Mohammed”), his ordeal of licking red-hot iron, his Salkh, or scarification,—proof of manliness,—his blood revenge, and his eating carrion (i.e., the body of an animal killed without the usual formula), and his lending his wives to strangers. All these I hold to be remnants of some old

[p.110] creed; nor should I despair of finding among the Badawin bordering upon the Great Desert some lingering system of idolatry.

The Badawin of Al-Hijaz call themselves Shafe’i but what is put into the mouths of their brethren in the West applies equally well here. “We pray not, because we must drink the water of ablution; we give no alms, because we ask them; we fast not the Ramazan month, because we starve throughout the year; and we do no pilgrimage, because the world is the House of Allah.” Their blunders in religious matters supply the citizens with many droll stories. And it is to be observed that they do not, like the Greek pirates or the Italian bandits, preserve a religious element in their plunderings; they make no vows, and they carefully avoid offerings.

The ceremonies of Badawi life are few and simple—circumcisions, marriages, and funerals. Of the former rite there are two forms, Taharah, as usual in Al-Islam, and Salkh, an Arab invention, derived from the times of Paganism.[FN#46] During Wahhabi rule it was forbidden under pain of death, but now the people have returned to it. The usual age for Taharah is between five and six; among

[p.111] some classes, however, it is performed ten years later. On such occasions feastings and merrymakings take place, as at our christenings.

Women being a marketable commodity in barbarism as in civilisation, the youth in Al-Hijaz is not married till his father can afford to buy him a bride. There is little pomp or ceremony save firing of guns, dancing, singing, and eating mutton. The “settlement” is usually about thirty sound Spanish dollars,[FN#47] half paid down, and the other owed by the bridegroom to the father, the brothers, or the kindred of his spouse. Some tribes will take animals in lieu of ready money. A man of wrath not contented with his bride, puts her away at once. If peaceably inclined, by a short delay he avoids scandal. Divorces are very frequent among Badawin, and if the settlement money be duly paid, no evil comes of them.[FN#48]

The funerals of the wild men resemble those of the citizens, only they are more simple, the dead being buried where they die. The corpse, after ablution, is shrouded in any rags procurable; and, women and hired weepers

[p.112] not being permitted to attend, it is carried to the grave by men only. A hole is dug, according to Moslem custom; dry wood, which everywhere abounds, is disposed to cover the corpse, and an oval of stones surrounding a mound of earth keeps out jackals and denotes the spot. These Badawin have not, like the wild Sindis and Baluchis, favourite cemeteries, to which they transport their dead from afar.

The traveller will find no difficulty in living amongst the Hijazi Badawin. “Trust to their honour, and you are safe,” as was said of the Crow Indians; “to their honesty and they will steal the hair off your head.” But the wanderer must adopt the wild man’s motto, omnia mea mecum porto; he must have good nerves, be capable of fatigue and hardship, possess some knowledge of drugs, shoot and ride well, speak Arabic and Turkish, know the customs by reading, and avoid offending against local prejudices, by causing himself, for instance, to be called Taggaa. The payment of a small sum secures to him a Rafik,[FN#49] and this “friend,” after once engaging in the task, will be faithful. “We have eaten salt together” (Nahnu Malihin) is still a bond of friendship: there are, however, some tribes who require to renew the bond every twenty-four hours, as otherwise, to use their own phrase, “the salt is not in their stomachs.” Caution must be exercised in choosing a companion who has not too many blood feuds. There is no objection to carrying a copper watch and a pocket compass, and a Koran could be fitted with secret pockets for notes and pencil. Strangers should especially avoid handsome weapons; these tempt the Badawin’s cupidity more than gold. The other extreme, defencelessness, is equally objectionable. It is needless to say that the traveller must never be seen writing anything but charms, and must on no account sketch in public. He should be careful in questioning, and rather lead up

[p.113] to information than ask directly. It offends some Badawin, besides denoting ignorance and curiosity, to be asked their names or those of their clans: a man may be living incognito, and the tribes distinguish themselves when they desire to do so by dress, personal appearance, voice, dialect, and accentuation, points of difference plain to the initiated. A few dollars suffice for the road, and if you would be “respectable,” a taste which I will not deprecate, some such presents as razors and Tarbushes are required for the chiefs.

The government of the Arabs may be called almost an autonomy. The tribes never obey their Shaykhs, unless for personal considerations, and, as in a civilised army, there generally is some sharp-witted and brazen-faced individual whose voice is louder than the general’s. In their leonine society the sword is the greater administrator of law.

Relations between the Badawi tribes of Al-Hijaz are of a threefold character: they are either Ashab, Kiman, or Akhwan.

Ashab, or “comrades,” are those who are bound by oath to an alliance offensive and defensive: they intermarry, and are therefore closely connected.

Kiman,[FN#50] or foes, are tribes between whom a blood feud, the cause and the effect of deadly enmity, exists.

Akhawat, or “brotherhood,” denotes the tie between the stranger and the Badawi, who asserts an immemorial and inalienable right to the soil upon which his forefathers fed their flocks. Trespass by a neighbour instantly causes war. Territorial increase is rarely attempted, for if of a whole clan but a single boy escape he will one day assert his claim to the land, and be assisted by all the Ashab, or [p.114] allies of the slain. By paying to man, woman, or child, a small sum, varying, according to your means, from a few pence worth of trinkets to a couple of dollars, you share bread and salt with the tribe, you and your horse become Dakhil (protected), and every one must afford you brother-help. If traveller or trader attempt to pass through the land without paying Al-Akhawah or Al-Rifkah, as it is termed, he must expect to be plundered, and, resisting, to be slain: it is no dishonour to pay it, and he clearly is in the wrong who refuses to conform to custom. The Rafik, under different names, exists throughout this part of the world; at Sinai he was called a Ghafir, a Rabia in Eastern Arabia, amongst the Somal an Abban, and by the Gallas a Mogasa. I have called the tax “black-mail”; it deserves a better name, being clearly the rudest form of those transit-dues and octrois which are in nowise improved by “progress.” The Ahl Bayt,[FN#51] or dwellers in the Black Tents, levy the tax from the Ahl Hayt, or the People of Walls; that is to say, townsmen and villagers who have forfeited right to be held Badawin. It is demanded from bastard Arabs, and from tribes who, like the Hutaym and the Khalawiyah, have been born basely or have become “nidering.” And these people are obliged to pay it at home as well as abroad. Then it becomes a sign of disgrace, and the pure clans, like the Benu Harb, will not give their damsels in marriage to “brothers.”

Besides this Akhawat-tax and the pensions by the Porte to chiefs of clans, the wealth of the Badawi consists in his flocks and herds, his mare, and his weapons. Some clans are rich in horses; others are celebrated for camels; and not a few for sheep, asses, or greyhounds. The Ahamidah tribe, as has been mentioned, possesses few animals; it subsists by plunder and by presents from

[p.115] pilgrims. The principal wants of the country are sulphur, lead, cloths of all kinds, sugar, spices, coffee, corn, and rice. Arms are valued by the men, and it is advisable to carry a stock of Birmingham jewellery for the purpose of conciliating womankind. In exchange the Badawin give sheep,[FN#52] cattle, clarified butter, milk, wool, and hides, which they use for water-bags, as the Egyptians and other Easterns do potteries. But as there is now a fair store of dollars in the country, it is rarely necessary to barter.

The Arab’s dress marks his simplicity; it gives him a nationality, as, according to John Evelyn, “prodigious breeches” did to the Swiss. It is remarkably picturesque, and with sorrow we see it now confined to the wildest Badawin and a few Sharifs. To the practised eye, a Hijazi in Tarbush and Caftan is ridiculous as a Basque or a Catalonian girl in a cachemire and a little chip. The necessary dress of a man is his Saub (Tobe), a blue calico shirt, reaching from neck to ankles, tight or loose-sleeved, opening at the chest in front, and rather narrow below; so that the wearer, when running, must either hold it up or tuck it into his belt. The latter article, called Hakw, is a plaited leathern thong, twisted round the waist very tightly, so as to support the back. The trousers and the Futah, or loin-cloth of cities, are looked upon as signs of effeminacy. In cold weather the chiefs wear over the shirt an Aba, or cloak. These garments are made in Nijd and the Eastern districts; they are of four colours, white, black, red, and brown-striped. The best are of camels’ hair, and may cost fifteen dollars; the worst, of sheep’s wool, are worth only three; both are cheap, as they last for years. The Mahramah (head-cloth) comes from Syria; which, with Nijd, supplies also the Kufiyah or headkerchief. The Ukal,[FN#53] fillets bound over

[p.116] the kerchief, are of many kinds; the Bishr tribe near Meccah make a kind of crown like the gloria round a saint’s head, with bits of wood, in which are set pieces of mother-o’-pearl. Sandals, too, are of every description, from the simple sole of leather tied on with thongs, to the handsome and elaborate chaussure of Meccah; the price varies from a piastre to a dollar, and the very poor walk barefooted. A leathern bandoleer, called Majdal, passed over the left shoulder, and reaching to the right hip, supports a line of brass cylinders for cartridges.[FN#54] The other cross-belt (Al-Masdar), made of leather ornamented with brass rings, hangs down at the left side, and carries a Kharizah, or hide-case for bullets. And finally, the Hizam, or waist-belt, holds the dagger and extra cartridge cases. A Badawi never appears in public unarmed.

Women wear, like their masters, dark blue cotton Tobes, but larger and looser. When abroad they cover the head with a Yashmak of black stuff, or a poppy-coloured Burka (nose-gay) of the Egyptian shape. They wear no pantaloons, and they rarely affect slippers or sandals. The hair is twisted into Majdul, little pig-tails, and copiously anointed with clarified butter. The rich perfume the skin with rose and cinnamon-scented oils, and adorn the hair with Al-Shayh (Absinthium), sweetest herb of the Desert; their ornaments are bracelets, collars, ear and nose-rings of gold, silver, or silver-gilt. The poorer classes have strings of silver coins hung round the neck.

The true Badawi is an abstemious man, capable of living for six months on ten ounces of food per diem; the milk of a single camel, and a handful of dates, dry or fried in clarified butter, suffice for his wants. He despises the obese and all who require regular and plentiful meals, sleeps on a mat, and knows neither luxury nor comfort, freezing during one quarter and frying for three quarters of the year. But though he can endure hunger, like all

[p.117] savages, he will gorge when an opportunity offers. I never saw the man who could refrain from water upon the line of march; and in this point they contrast disadvantageously with the hardy Wahhabis of the East, and the rugged mountaineers of Jabal Shammar. They are still “acridophagi,” and even the citizens far prefer a dish of locusts to the Fasikh, which act as anchovies, sardines, and herrings in Egypt. They light a fire at night, and as the insects fall dead they quote this couplet to justify their being eaten—

“We are allowed two carrions and two bloods, The fish and locust, the liver and the spleen.[FN#55]”

Where they have no crops to lose, the people are thankful for a fall of locusts. In Al-Hijaz the flights are uncertain; during the last five years Al-Madinah has seen but few. They are prepared for eating by boiling in salt water and drying four or five days in the sun: a “wet” locust to an Arab is as a snail to a Briton. The head is plucked off, the stomach drawn, the wings and the prickly part of the legs are plucked, and the insect is ready for the table. Locusts are never eaten with sweet things, which would be nauseous: the dish is always “hot,” with salt and pepper, or onions fried in clarified butter, when it tastes nearly as well as a plate of stale shrimps.

The favourite food on the line of march is meat cut into strips and sun-dried. This, with a bag of milk-balls[FN#56]

[p.118] and a little coffee, must suffice for journey or campaign. The Badawin know neither fermented nor distilled liquors, although Ikhs ya’l Khammar! (Fie upon thee, drunkard!) is a popular phrase, preserving the memory of another state of things. Some clans, though not all, smoke tobacco. It is generally the growth of the country called Hijazi or Kazimiyah; a green weed, very strong, with a foul smell, and costing about one piastre per pound. The Badawin do not relish Persian tobacco, and cannot procure Latakia: it is probably the pungency of the native growth offending the delicate organs of the Desert-men, that caused nicotiana to be proscribed by the Wahhabis, who revived against its origin a senseless and obsolete calumny.

The almost absolute independence of the Arabs, and of that noble race the North American Indians of a former generation, has produced a similarity between them worthy of note, because it may warn the anthropologist not always to detect in coincidence of custom identity of origin. Both have the same wild chivalry, the same fiery sense of honour, and the same boundless hospitality: elopements from tribe to tribe, the blood feud, and the Vendetta are common to the to. Both are grave and cautious in demeanour, and formal in manner,—princes in rags or paint. The Arabs plunder pilgrims; the Indians, bands of trappers; both glory in forays, raids, and cattle-lifting; and both rob according to certain rules. Both are alternately brave to desperation, and shy of danger. Both are remarkable for nervous and powerful eloquence; dry humour, satire, whimsical tales, frequent tropes; boasts, and ruffling style; pithy proverbs, extempore songs, and languages wondrous in their complexity. Both, recognising no other occupation but war and the chase, despise artificers and the effeminate people of cities, as the game-cock spurns the vulgar roosters of the poultry-yard.[FN#57] The [p.119] chivalry of the Western wolds, like that of the Eastern wilds, salutes the visitor by a charge of cavalry, by discharging guns, and by wheeling around him with shouts and yells. The “brave” stamps a red hand upon his mouth to show that he has drunk the blood of a foe. Of the Utaybah “Harami” it is similarly related, that after mortal combat he tastes the dead man’s gore.

Of these two chivalrous races of barbarians, the Badawi claims our preference on account of his treatment of women, his superior development of intellect, and the glorious page of history which he has filled.

The tribes of Al-Hijaz are tediously numerous: it will be sufficient to enumerate the principal branches of the Badawi tree, without detailing the hundred little offshoots which it has put forth in the course of ages.[FN#58]

Those ancient clans the Abs and Adnan have almost died out. The latter, it is said, still exists in the neighbourhood of Taif; and the Abs, I am informed, are to be found near Kusayr (Cosseir), on the African coast, but not in Al-Hijaz. Of the Aus, Khazraj, and Nazir details have been given in a previous chapter. The Benu Harb is now the ruling clan in the Holy Land. It is divided by genealogists into two great bodies, first, the Benu Salim, and, secondly, the Masruh,[FN#59] or “roaming tribes.”

[p.120]The Benu Salim, again, have eight subdivisions, viz.:—

1. Ahamidah (Ahmadi)[FN#60]: this clan owns for chief, Shaykh Sa’ad of the mountains. It is said to contain about 3500 men. Its principal sub-clan is the Hadari. 2. Hawazim (Hazimi), the rival tribe, 3000 in number: it is again divided into Muzayni and Zahiri. 3. Sobh (Sobhi), 3500, habitat near Al-Badr. 4. Salaymah (Salimi), also called Aulad Salim. 5. Sa’adin (Sa’adani). 6. Mahamid (Mahmadi), 8000. 7. Rahalah (Rihayli), 1000. 8. Timam (Tamimi).

The Masruh tree splits into two great branches, Benu Auf, and Benu Amur.[FN#61] The former is a large clan, extending from Wady Nakia [Arabic] near Nijd, to Rabigh and Al-Madinah. They have few horses, but many dromedaries, camels, and sheep, and are much feared by the people, on account of their warlike and savage character. They separate into ten sub-divisions, viz.:—

1. Sihliyah (Sihli), about 2000 in number. 2. Sawaid (Sa’idi), 1000. 3. Rukhasah (Rakhis). 4. Kassanin (Kassan): this sub-clan claims origin from the old “Gassan” stock, and is found in considerable numbers at Wady Nakia and other places near Al-Madinah. 5. Ruba’ah (Rabai). 6. Khazarah (Khuzayri). 7. Lahabah (Lahaybi), 1500 in number. 8. Faradah (Faradi). 9. Benu Ali (Alawi). 10. Zubayd (Zubaydi), near Meccah, a numerous clan of fighting thieves.

Also under the Benu Amur—as the word is popularly pronounced—are ten sub-families.

1. Marabitah (Murabti). They [nrs. 1-5] principally inhabit the land about Al-Fara [Arabic] a collection of settlements four marches South of Al-Madinah, number about 10,000 men, and have droves of sheep and camels but few horses. 2. Hussar (Hasir). 3. Benu Jabir (Jabiri). [p.121] 4. Rabaykah (Rubayki). 5. Hisnan (Hasuni). 6. Bizan (Bayzani). 7. Badarin (Badrani). 8. Biladiyah (Biladi). 9. Jaham (the singular and plural forms are the same). 10. Shatarah (Shitayri).[FN#62]

The great Anizah race now, I was told, inhabits Khaybar, and it must not visit Al-Madinah without a Rafik or protector. Properly speaking there are no outcasts in Al-Hijaz, as in Al-Yaman and the Somali country. But the Hitman (pl. of Hutaym or Hitaym), inhabiting the sea-board about Yambu’, are taxed by other Badawin as low and vile of origin. The unchastity of the women is connived at by the men, who, however, are brave and celebrated as marksmen: they make, eat, and sell cheese, for which reason that food is despised by the Harb. And the Khalawiyah (pl. of Khalawi) are equally despised; they are generally blacksmiths, have a fine breed of greyhounds, and give asses as a dowry, which secures for them the derision of their fellows.

Mr. C. Cole, H. B. M.’s Vice-Consul at Jeddah, was kind enough to collect for me notices of the different tribes in Central and Southern Hijaz. His informants divide the great clan Juhaynah living about Yambu’ and Yambu’ al-Nakhl into five branches, viz.:—

1. Benu Ibrahimah, in number about 5000. 2. Ishran, 700. 3. Benu Malik, 6000. [p.122] 4. Arwah, 5000. 5. Kaunah, 3000. Thus giving a total of 19,700 men capable of carrying arms.[FN#63]

The same gentleman, whose labours in Eastern Arabia during the coast survey of the “Palinurus” are well known to the Indian world, gives the following names of the tribes under allegiance to the Sharif of Meccah.

1. Sakif (Thakif) al-Yaman, 2000. 2. Sakif al-Sham,[FN#64] 1000. 3. Benu Malik, 6000. 4. Nasirah, 3000. 5. Benu Sa’ad, 4000. 6. Huzayh (Hudhayh), 5000. 7. Bakum (Begoum), 5000. 8. Adudah, 500. 9. Bashar, 1000. 10. Sa’id, 1500. 11. Zubayd, 4000. 12. Aydah, 1000.

The following is a list of the Southern Hijazi tribes, kindly forwarded to me by the Abbe Hamilton, after his return from a visit to the Sharif at Taif.

1. Ghamid al-Badawy (“of the nomades”), 30,000. 2. Ghamid al-Hazar (“the settled”), 40,000. 3. Zahran, 38,000. 4. Benu Malik, 30,000. 5. Nasirah, 15,000. 6. Asir, 40,000. 7. Tamum, * 8. Bilkarn, * * together, 80,000. 9. Benu Ahmar, 10,000. 10. Utaybah, living north of Meccah: no number given. 11. Shu’abin. 12. Daraysh, 2000. [p.123] 13. Benu Sufyan, 15,000. 14. Al-Hullad, 3000.

It is evident that the numbers given by this traveller include the women, and probably the children of the tribes. Some exaggeration will also be suspected.

The principal clans which practise the pagan Salkh, or excoriation, are, in Al-Hijaz, the Huzayl and the Benu Sufyan, together with the following families in Al-Tahamah:

1. Juhadilah. 2. Kabakah. 3. Benu Fahm. 4. Benu Mahmud. 5. Saramu (?) 6. Majarish. 7. Benu Yazid.

I now take leave of a subject which cannot but be most uninteresting to English readers.

[FN#1] In Holy Writ, as the indigens are not alluded to—only the Noachian race being described—we find two divisions: 1 The children of Joktan (great grandson of Shem), Mesopotamians settled in Southern Arabia, “from Mesha (Musa or Meccah?) to Sephar” (Zafar), a “Mount of the East,”—Genesis, x. 30: that is to say, they occupied the lands from Al-Tahamah to Mahrah. 2. The children of Ishmael, and his Egyptian wife; they peopled only the Wilderness of Paran in the Sinaitic Peninsula and the parts adjacent. Dr. Aloys Sprenger (Life of Mohammed, p. 18), throws philosophic doubt upon the Ishmaelitish descent of Mohammed, who in personal appearance was a pure Caucasian, without any mingling of Egyptian blood. And the Ishmaelitish origin of the whole Arab race is an utterly untenable theory. Years ago, our great historian sensibly remarked that “the name (Saracens), used by Ptolemy and Pliny in a more confined, by Ammianus and Procopius in a larger sense, has been derived ridiculously from Sarah the wife of Abraham.” In Gibbon’s observation, the erudite Interpreter of the One Primaeval Language,—the acute bibliologist who metamorphoses the quail of the wilderness into a “ruddy goose,”—detects “insidiousness” and “a spirit of restless and rancorous hostility” against revealed religion. He proceeds on these sound grounds to attack the accuracy, the honesty and the learning of the mighty dead. This may be Christian zeal; it is not Christian charity. Of late years it has been the fashion for every aspirant to ecclesiastical honours to deal a blow at the ghost of Gibbon. And, as has before been remarked, Mr. Foster gratuitously attacked Burckhardt, whose manes had long rested in the good-will of man. This contrasts offensively with Lord Lindsay’s happy compliment to the memory of the honest Swiss and the amiable eulogy quoted by Dr. Keith from the Quarterly (vol. xxiii.), and thus adopted as his own. It may seem folly to defend the historian of the Decline and Fall against the compiler of the Historical Geography of Arabia. But continental Orientalists have expressed their wonder at the appearance in this nineteenth century of the “Voice of Israel from Mount Sinai” and the “India in Greece”[;] they should be informed that all our Eastern students are not votaries of such obsolete vagaries. [FN#2] This is said without any theory. According to all historians of long inhabited lands, the advenae—whether migratory tribes or visitors—find indigens or [Greek]. [FN#3] They are described as having small heads, with low brows and ill-formed noses, (strongly contrasting with the Jewish feature), irregular lines, black skins, and frames for the most part frail and slender. For a physiological description of this race, I must refer my readers to the writings of Dr. Carter of Bombay, the medical officer of the Palinurus, when engaged on the Survey of Eastern Arabia. With ample means of observation he has not failed to remark the similarity between the lowest type of Badawi and the Indigens of India, as represented by the Bhils and other Jungle races. This, from a man of science who is not writing up to a theory, may be considered strong evidence in favour of variety in the Arabian family. The fact has long been suspected, but few travellers have given their attention to the subject since the downfall of Sir William Jones’ Indian origin theory. I am convinced that there is not in Arabia “one Arab face, cast of features and expression,” as was formerly supposed to be the case, and I venture to recommend the subject for consideration to future observers. [FN#4] Of this Mesopotamian race there are now many local varieties. The subjects of the four Abyssinian and Christian sovereigns who succeeded Yusuf, the Jewish “Lord of the Pit,” produced, in Al-Yaman, the modern “Akhdam” or “Serviles.” The “Hujur” of Al-Yaman and Oman are a mixed race whose origin is still unknown. And to quote no more cases, the “Ebna” mentioned by the Ibn Ishak were descended from the Persian soldiers of Anushirwan, who expelled the Abyssinian invader. [FN#5] That the Copts, or ancient Egyptians, were “Half-caste Arabs,” a mixed people like the Abyssinians, the Gallas, the Somal, and the Kafirs, an Arab graft upon an African stock, appears highly probable. Hence the old Nilotic race has been represented as woolly-headed and of negro feature. Thus Leo Africanus makes the Africans to be descendants of the Arabs. Hence the tradition that Egypt was peopled by AEthiopia, and has been gradually whitened by admixture of Persian and Median, Greek and Roman blood. Hence, too, the fancied connection of Aethiopia with Cush, Susiana, Khuzistan or the lands about the Tigris. Thus learned Virgil, confounding the Western with the Eastern Aethiopians, alludes to

“Usque coloratos Nilus devexus ad Indos.”

And Strabo maintains the people of Mauritania to be Indians who had come with Hercules. We cannot but remark in Southern Arabia the footprints of the Hindu, whose superstitions, like the Phoenix which flew from India to expire in Egypt, passed over to Arabia with Dwipa Sukhatra (Socotra) for a resting place on its way to the regions of the remotest West. As regards the difference between the Japhetic and Semitic tongues, it may be remarked that though nothing can be more distinct than Sanscrit and Arabic, yet that Pahlavi and Hebrew (Prof. Bohlen on Genesis) present some remarkable points of resemblance. I have attempted in a work on Sind to collect words common to both families. And further research convinces me that such vocables as the Arabic Taur [Arabic] the Persian Tora [Persian] and the Latin “Taurus” denote an ancient rapprochement, whose mysteries still invite the elucidation of modern science. [FN#6] The Sharif families affect marrying female slaves, thereby showing the intense pride which finds no Arab noble enough for them. Others take to wife Badawi girls: their blood, therefore, is by no means pure. The worst feature of their system is the forced celibacy of their daughters; they are never married into any but Sharif families; consequently they often die in spinsterhood. The effects of this custom are most pernicious, for though celibacy exists in the East it is by no means synonymous with chastity. Here it springs from a morbid sense of honour, and arose, it is popularly said, from an affront taken by a Sharif against his daughter’s husband. But all Arabs condemn the practice. [FN#7] I use this word as popular abuse has fixed it. Every Orientalist knows that Badawin (Bedouin) is the plural form of Badawi, an “ism al-nisbah,” or adjective derived from Badu, a Desert. “Some words notoriously corrupt,” says Gibbon, “are fixed, and as it were naturalised, in the vulgar tongue.” The word “Badawi” is not insulting, like “Turk” applied to an Osmanli, or “Fellah” to the Egyptian. But you affront the wild man by mistaking his clan for a lower one. “Ya Hitaymi,” for instance, addressed to a Harb Badawi, makes him finger his dagger. [FN#8] This coarseness is not a little increased by a truly Badawi habit of washing the locks with—[Arabic]. It is not considered wholly impure, and is also used for the eyes, upon which its ammonia would act as a rude stimulant. The only cosmetic is clarified butter freely applied to the body as well as to the hair. [FN#9] “Kurun” ([Arabic]) properly means “horns.” The Sharifs generally wear their hair in “Haffah” ([Arabic]), long locks hanging down both sides of the neck and shaved away about a finger’s breadth round the forehead and behind the neck. [FN#10] This traveller describes the modern Mesopotamian and Northern race, which, as its bushy beard—unusual feature in pure Arab blood—denotes, is mixed with central Asian. In the North, as might be expected, the camels are hairy; whereas, in Al-Hijaz and in the low parts of Al-Yaman, a whole animal does not give a handful fit for weaving. The Arabs attribute this, as we should, to heat, which causes the longer hairs to drop off. [FN#11] “Magnum inter Arabes et Africanos discrimen efficit [Greek]. Arabum parvula membra sicut nobilis aequi. Africanum tamen flaccum, crassum longumque: ita quiescens, erectum tamen parum distenditur. Argumentum validissimum est ad indagandam Egyptorum originem: Nilotica enim gens membrum habet Africanum.” [FN#12] Whereas the Saxon thumb is thick, flat, and short, extending scarcely half way to the middle joint of the index. [FN#13] A similar unwillingness to name the wife may be found in some parts of southern Europe, where probably jealousy or possibly Asiatic custom has given rise to it. Among the Maltese it appears in a truly ridiculous way, e.g., “dice la mia moglie, con rispetto parlando, &c.,” says the husband, adding to the word spouse a “saving your presence,” as if he were speaking of something offensive. [FN#14] Dr. Howe (Report on Idiotcy in Massachusetts, 1848,) asserts that “the law against the marriage of relations is made out as clearly as though it were written on tables of stone.” He proceeds to show that in seventeen households where the parents were connected by blood, of ninety-five children one was a dwarf, one deaf, twelve scrofulous, and forty-four idiots—total fifty-eight diseased! [FN#15] Yet the celebrated “Flying Childers” and all his race were remarkably bred in. There is still, in my humble opinion, much mystery about the subject, to be cleared up only by the studies of physiologists. [FN#16] This sounds in English like an “Irish bull.” I translate “Badu,” as the dictionaries do, “a Desert.” [FN#17] The Sharbat Kajari is the “Acquetta” of Persia, and derives its name from the present royal family. It is said to be a mixture of verdigris with milk; if so, it is a very clumsy engine of state policy. In Egypt and Mosul, Sulaymani (the common name for an Afghan) is used to signify “poison”; but I know not whether it be merely euphuistic or confined to some species. The banks of the Nile are infamous for these arts, and Mohammed Ali Pasha imported, it is said, professional poisoners from Europe. [FN#18] Throughout the world the strictness of the Lex Scripta is in inverse ratio to that of custom: whenever the former is lax, the latter is stringent, and vice versa. Thus in England, where law leaves men comparatively free, they are slaves to a grinding despotism of conventionalities, unknown in the land of tyrannical rule. This explains why many men, accustomed to live under despotic governments, feel fettered and enslaved in the so-called free countries. Hence, also, the reason why notably in a republic there is less private and practical liberty than under a despotism. The “Kazi al-Arab” (Judge of the Arabs) is in distinction to the Kazi al-Shara, or the Kazi of the Koran. The former is, almost always, some sharp-witted greybeard, with a minute knowledge of genealogy and precedents, a retentive memory and an eloquent tongue. [FN#19] Thus the Arabs, being decidedly a parsimonious people, indulge in exaggerated praises and instances of liberality. Hatim Tai, whose generosity is unintelligible to Europeans, becomes the Arab model of the “open hand.” Generally a high beau ideal is no proof of a people’s practical pre-eminence, and when exaggeration enters into it and suits the public taste, a low standard of actuality may be fairly suspected. But to convince the oriental mind you must dazzle it. Hence, in part, the superhuman courage of Antar, the liberality of Hatim, the justice of Omar, and the purity of Laila and Majnun under circumstances more trying than aught chronicled in Mathilde, or in the newest American novel. [FN#20] At the battle of Bissel, when Mohammed Ali of Egypt broke the 40,000 guerillas of Faisal son of Sa’ud the Wahhabi, whole lines of the Benu Asir tribe were found dead and tied by the legs with ropes. This system of colligation dates from old times in Arabia, as the “Affair of Chains” (Zat al-Salasil) proves. It is alluded to by the late Sir Henry Elliot in his “Appendix to the Arabs in Sind,”—a work of remarkable sagacity and research. According to the “Beglar-Nameh,” it was a “custom of the people of Hind and Sind, whenever they devote themselves to death, to bind themselves to each other by their mantles and waistbands.” It seems to have been an ancient practice in the West as in the East: the Cimbri, to quote no other instances, were tied together with cords when attacked by Marius. Tactic truly worthy of savages to prepare for victory by expecting a defeat! [FN#21] Though differing in opinion, upon one subject, from the Rev. Mr. Robertson, the lamented author of this little work, I cannot refrain from expressing the highest admiration of those noble thoughts, those exalted views, and those polished sentiments which, combining the delicacy of the present with the chivalry of a past age, appear in a style

“As smooth as woman and as strong as man.”

Would that it were in my power to pay a more adequate tribute to his memory! [FN#22] Even Juno, in the most meaningless of idolatries, became, according to Pausanias (lib. ii. cap. 38), a virgin once every year. And be it observed that Al-Islam (the faith, not the practice) popularly decided to debase the social state of womankind, exalts it by holding up to view no fewer than two examples of perfection in the Prophet’s household. Khadijah, his first wife, was a minor saint, and the Lady Fatimah is supposed to have been spiritually unspotted by sin, and materially ever a virgin, even after giving birth to Hasan and to Hosayn. [FN#23] There is no objection to intermarriage between equal clans, but the higher will not give their daughters to the lower in dignity. [FN#24] For instance: “A certain religious man was so deeply affected with the love of a king’s daughter, that he was brought to the brink of the grave,” is a favourite inscriptive formula. Usually the hero “sickens in consequence of the heroine’s absence, and continues to the hour of his death in the utmost grief and anxiety.” He rarely kills himself, but sometimes, when in love with a pretty infidel, he drinks wine and he burns the Koran. The “hated rival” is not a formidable person; but there are for good reasons great jealousy of female friends, and not a little fear of the beloved’s kinsmen. Such are the material sentiments; the spiritual part is a thread of mysticism, upon which all the pearls of adventure and incident are strung. [FN#25] It is curious that these pastoral races, which supply poetry with namby-pamby Colinades, figure as the great tragedians of history. The Scythians, the Huns, the Arabs, and the Tartars were all shepherds. They first armed themselves with clubs to defend their flocks from wild beasts. Then they learned warfare, and improved means of destruction by petty quarrels about pastures; and, finally, united by the commanding genius of some skin-clad Caesar or Napoleon, they fell like avalanches upon those valleys of the world—Mesopotamia, India, and Egypt—whose enervate races offered them at once temptations to attack, and certainty of success. [FN#26] Even amongst the Indians, as a race the least chivalrous of men, there is an oath which binds two persons of different sex in the tie of friendship, by making them brother and sister to each other. [FN#27] Richardson derives our “knight” from Nikht ([Arabic]), a tilter with spears, and “Caitiff” from Khattaf, ([Arabic]) a snatcher or ravisher. [FN#28] I am not ignorant that the greater part of “Antar” is of modern and disputed origin. Still it accurately expresses Arab sentiment. [FN#29] I wish that the clever Orientalist who writes in the Saturday Review would not translate “Al-Layl,” by lenes sub nocte susurri: the Arab bard alluded to no such effeminacies. [FN#30] The subject of “Dakhl” has been thoroughly exhausted by Burckhardt and Layard. It only remains to be said that the Turks, through ignorance of the custom, have in some cases made themselves contemptible by claiming the protection of women. [FN#31] It is by no means intended to push this comparison of the Arab’s with the Hibernian’s poetry. The former has an intensity which prevents our feeling that “there are too many flowers for the fruit”; the latter is too often a mere blaze of words, which dazzle and startle, but which, decomposed by reflection, are found to mean nothing. Witness

“The diamond turrets of Shadukiam, And the fragrant bowers of Amberabad!”

[FN#32] I am informed that the Benu Kahtan still improvise, but I never heard them. The traveller in Arabia will always be told that some remote clan still produces mighty bards, and uses in conversation the terminal vowels of the classic tongue, but he will not believe these assertions till personally convinced of their truth. The Badawi dialect, however, though debased, is still, as of yore, purer than the language of the citizens. During the days when philology was a passion in the East, those Stephens and Johnsons of Semitic lore, Firuzabadi and Al-Zamakhshari, wandered from tribe to tribe and from tent to tent, collecting words and elucidating disputed significations. Their grammatical expeditions are still remembered, and are favourite stories with scholars. [FN#33] I say “skilful in reading,” because the Arabs, like the Spaniards, hate to hear their language mangled by mispronunciation. When Burckhardt, who spoke badly, began to read verse to the Badawin, they could not refrain from a movement of impatience, and used to snatch the book out of his hands. [FN#34] The civilized poets of the Arab cities throw the charm of the Desert over their verse, by images borrowed from its scenery—the dromedary, the mirage, and the well—as naturally as certain of our songsters, confessedly haters of the country, babble of lowing kine, shady groves, spring showers, and purling rills. [FN#35] Some will object to this expression; Arabic being a harsh and guttural tongue. But the sound of language, in the first place, depends chiefly upon the articulator. Who thinks German rough in the mouth of a woman, with a suspicion of a lisp, or that English is the dialect of birds, when spoken by an Italian? Secondly, there is a music far more spirit-stirring in harshness than in softness: the languages of Castile and of Tuscany are equally beautiful, yet who does not prefer the sound of the former? The gutturality of Arabia is less offensive than that of the highlands of Barbary. Professor Willis, of Cambridge, attributes the broad sounds and the guttural consonants of mountaineers and the people of elevated plains to the physical action of cold. Conceding this to be a partial cause, I would rather refer the phenomenon to the habit of loud speaking, acquired by the dwellers in tents, and by those who live much in the open air. The Todas of the Neilgherry Hills have given the soft Tamil all the harshness of Arabic, and he who hears them calling to each other from the neighbouring peaks, can remark the process of broadening vowel and gutturalising consonant. On the other hand, the Gallas and the Persians, also a mountain-people, but inhabiting houses, speak comparatively soft tongues. The Cairenes actually omit some of the harshest sounds of Arabia, turning Makass into Ma’as, and Sakka into Sa’a. It is impossible to help remarking the bellowing of the Badawi when he first enters a dwelling-place, and the softening of the sound when he has become accustomed to speak within walls. Moreover, it is to be observed there is a great difference of articulation, not pronunciation, among the several Badawi clans. The Benu Auf are recognised by their sharp, loud, and sudden speech, which the citizens compare to the barking of dogs. The Benu Amr, on the contrary, speak with a soft and drawling sound. The Hutaym, in addition to other peculiarities, add a pleonastic “ah,” to soften the termination of words, as A’atini hawajiyah, (for hawaiji), “Give me my clothes.” [FN#36] The Germans have returned for inspiration to the old Eastern source. Ruckert was guided by Jalal al-Din to the fountains of Sufyism. And even the French have of late made an inroad into Teutonic mysticism successfully enough to have astonished Racine and horrified La Harpe. [FN#37] This, however, does not prevent the language becoming optionally most precise in meaning; hence its high philosophical character. The word “farz,” for instance, means, radically “cutting,” secondarily “ordering,” or “paying a debt,” after which come numerous meanings foreign to the primal sense, such as a shield, part of a tinder-box, an unfeathered arrow, and a particular kind of date. In theology it is limited to a single signification, namely, a divine command revealed in the Koran. Under these circumstances the Arabic becomes, in grammar, logic, rhetoric, and mathematics, as perfect and precise as Greek. I have heard Europeans complain that it is unfit for mercantile transactions.—Perhaps! [FN#38] As a general rule there is a rhyme at the end of every second line, and the unison is a mere fringe—a long a, for instance, throughout the poem sufficing for the delicate ear of the Arab. In this they were imitated by the old Spaniards, who, neglecting the consonants, merely required the terminating vowels to be alike. We speak of the “sort of harmonious simple flow which atones for the imperfect nature of the rhyme.” But the fine organs of some races would be hurt by that ponderous unison which a people of blunter senses find necessary to produce an impression. The reader will feel this after perusing in “Percy’s Reliques” Rio Verde! Rio Verde! and its translation. [FN#39] In our knightly ages the mare was ridden only by jugglers and charlatans. Did this custom arise from the hatred of, and contempt for, the habits of the Arabs, imported into Europe by the Crusaders? Certainly the popular Eastern idea of a Frank was formed in those days, and survives to these. [FN#40] Baron Von Hammer-Purgstall, in the “Falkner-Klee,” calls this bird the “Saker-falke.” Hence the French and English names sacre and saker. The learned John Beckmann (History of Inventions, Discoveries, and Origins: sub voce) derives falconry from India, where, “as early as the time of Ctesias, hares and foxes were hunted by means of rapacious birds.” I believe, however, that no trace of this sport is found in the writings of the Hindus. Beckmann agrees with Giraldus, against other literati, that the ancient Greeks knew the art of hawking, and proves from Aristotle, that in Thrace men trained falcons. But Aristotle alludes to the use of the bird, as an owl is employed in Italy: the falcon is described as frightening, not catching the birds. Œlian corroborates Aristotle’s testimony. Pliny, however, distinctly asserts that the hawks strike their prey down. “In Italy it was very common,” says the learned Beckmann, “for Martial and Apuleius speak of it as a thing everywhere known. Hence the science spread over Europe, and reached perfection at the principal courts in the twelfth century.” The Emperor Frederic II. wrote “De Arte Venandi cum Avibus,” and the royal author was followed by a host of imitators in the vulgar tongue. Though I am not aware that the Hindus ever cultivated the art, Œlian, it must be confessed, describes their style of training falcons exactly similar to that in use among the modern Persians, Sindians, and Arabs. The Emperor Frederic owes the “capella,” or hood to the Badawi, and talks of the “most expert falconers” sent to him with various kinds of birds by some of the kings of Arabia. The origin of falconry is ascribed by Al-Mas’udi, on the authority of Adham bin Muhriz, to the king Al-Haris bin Mu’awiyah, and in Dr. Sprenger’s admirable translation the reader will find (pp. 426, 428), much information upon the subject. The Persians claim the invention for their just King, Anushirawan, contemporary with Mohammed. Thence the sport passed into Turkey, where it is said the Sultans maintained a body of 6000 falconers. And Frederic Barbarossa, in the twelfth century, brought falcons to Italy. We may fairly give the honour of the invention to Central Asia. [FN#41] Here called “bandukiyah bi ruhayn,” or the two-mouthed gun. The leathern cover is termed “gushat”; it is a bag with a long-ringed tassel at the top of the barrel, and a strap by which it is slung to the owner’s back. [FN#42] I described elsewhere the Mirzak, or javelin. [FN#43] Ostriches are found in Al-Hijaz, where the Badawin shoot after coursing them. The young ones are caught and tamed, and the eggs may be bought in the Madinah bazar. Throughout Arabia there is a belief that the ostrich throws stones at the hunter. The superstition may have arisen from the pebbles being flung up behind by the bird’s large feet in his rapid flight, or it may be a mere “foolery of fancy.” Even in lands which have long given up animal-worship, wherever a beast is conspicuous or terrible, it becomes the subject of some marvellous tale. So the bear in Persia imitates a moolah’s dress; the wolf in France is a human being transformed, and the beaver of North America, also a metamorphosis, belts trees so as to fell them in the direction most suitable to his after purpose. [FN#44] Not that the “Agrebi” of Bir Hamid and other parts have much to learn of us in vice. The land of Al-Yaman is, I believe, the most demoralised country, and Sana’a the most depraved city in Arabia. The fair sex distinguishes itself by a peculiar laxity of conduct, which is looked upon with an indulgent eye. And the men drink and gamble, to say nothing of other peccadilloes, with perfect impunity. [FN#45] In Al-Yaman, it is believed, that if a man eat three heads of garlic in good mountain-samn (or clarified butter) for forty days, his blood will kill the snake that draws it. [FN#46] Circumcisionis causa apud Arabos manifestissima, ulceratio enim endemica, abrasionem glandis aut praeputii, maxima cum facilitate insequitur. Mos autem quem vocant Arabes Al-Salkh ([Arabic] i.e. scarificatio) virilitatem animumque ostendendi modus esse videtur. Exeunt amici paterque, et juvenem sub dio sedentem circumstant. Capit tunc pugionem tonsor et præputio abscisso detrahit pellem [Greek] ab umbilico incipiens aut parum infra, ventremque usque ad femora nudat. Juvenis autem dextra pugionem super tergum tonsoris vibrans magna clamat voce [Arabic] i.e. caede sine timore. Vae si haesitet tonsor aut si tremeat manus! Pater etiam filium si dolore ululet statim occidit. Re confecta surgit juvenis et [Arabic] “Gloria Deo” intonans, ad tentoria tendit, statim nefando oppressus dolore humi procumbit. Remedia Sal, et [Arabic] (tumerica); cibus lac cameli. Nonnullos occidit ingens suppuratio, decem autem excoriatis supersunt plerumque octo: hi pecten habent nullum, ventremque pallida tegit cutis. [FN#47] The Spanish dollar is most prized in Al-Hijaz; in Al-Yaman the Maria Theresa. The Spanish Government has refused to perpetuate its Pillar-dollar, which at one time was so great a favourite in the East. The traveller wonders how “Maria Theresas” still supply both shores of the Red Sea. The marvel is easily explained: the Austrians receive silver at Milan, and stamp it for a certain percentage. This coin was doubtless preferred by the Badawin for its superiority to the currency of the day: they make from it ornaments for their women and decorations for their weapons. The generic term for dollars is “Riyal Fransah.” [FN#48] Torale, sicut est mos Judaicus et Persicus, non inspiciunt. Novae nuptae tamen maritus mappam manu capit: mane autem puellae mater virginitatis signa viris mulieribusque domi ostendit eosque jubilare jubet quod calamitas domestica, sc. filia, intacta abiit. Si non ostendeant mappam, maeret domus, “prima enim Venus” in Arabia, “debet esse cruenta.” Maritus autem humanior, etiamsi absit sanguis, cruore palumbino mappam tingit et gaudium fingens cognatis parentibusque ostendit; paululum postea puellae nonnulla causa dat divortium. Hic urbis et ruris mos idem est. [FN#49] An explanation of this term will be found below. [FN#50] It is the plural of “Kaum,” which means “rising up in rebellion or enmity against,” as well as the popular signification, a “people.” In some parts of Arabia it is used for a “plundering party.” [FN#51] Bayt (in the plural Buyut) is used in this sense to denote the tents of the nomades. “Bayt” radically means a “nighting-place”; thence a tent, a house, a lair, &c., &c. [FN#52] Some tribes will not sell their sheep, keeping them for guests or feasts. [FN#53] So the word is pronounced at Meccah. The dictionaries give “Aakal,” which in Eastern Arabia is corrupted to “Igal.” [FN#54] Called “Tatarif,” plural of Tatrifah, a cartridge. [FN#55] The liver and the spleen are both supposed to be “congealed blood.” Niebuhr has exhausted the names and the description of the locust. In Al-Hijaz they have many local and fantastic terms: the smallest kind, for instance, is called Jarad Iblis, Satan’s locust. [FN#56] This is the Kurut of Sind and the Kashk of Persia. The butter-milk, separated from the butter by a little water, is simmered over a slow fire, thickened with wheaten flour, about a handful to a gallon, well-mixed, so that no knots remain in it, and allowed to cool. The mixture is then put into a bag and strained, after which salt is sprinkled over it. The mass begins to harden after a few hours, when it is made up into balls and dried in the sun. [FN#57] The North American trappers adopted this natural prejudice: the “free trapper” called his more civilized confrere, “mangeur de lard.” [FN#58] Burckhardt shrank from the intricate pedigree of the Meccan Sharifs. I have seen a work upon the subject in four folio volumes in point of matter equivalent to treble the number in Europe. The best known genealogical works are Al-Kalkashandi (originally in seventy-five books, extended to one hundred); the Umdat al-Tullab by Ibn Khaldun; the “Tohfat al-Arab fi Ansar al-Arab,” a well-known volume by Al-Siyuti; and, lastly, the Sirat al-Halabi, in six volumes 8vo. Of the latter work there is an abridgment by Mohammed al-Banna al-Dimyati in two volumes 8vo.; but both are rare, and consequently expensive. [FN#59] I give the following details of the Harb upon the authority of my friend Omar Effendi, who is great in matters of genealogy. [FN#60]The first word is the plural, the second the singular form of the word. [FN#61] In the singular Aufi and Amri. [FN#62] To these Mr. Cole adds seven other sub-divisions, viz.:— 1. Ahali al-Kura (“the people of Kura?”), 5000. 2. Radadah, 800. 3. Hijlah, 600. 4. Dubayah, 1500. 5. Benu Kalb, 2000. 6. Bayzanah, 800. 7. Benu Yahya, 800. And he makes the total of the Benu Harb about Al-Jadaydah amount to 35,000 men. I had no means of personally ascertaining the correctness of this information. [FN#63] The reader will remember that nothing like exactitude in numbers can be expected from an Arab. Some rate the Benu Harb at 6000; others, equally well informed, at 15,000; others again at 80,000. The reason of this is that, whilst one is speaking of the whole race, another may be limiting it to his own tribe and its immediate allies. [FN#64] “Sham” which, properly speaking, means Damascus or Syria, in Southern Arabia and Eastern Africa is universally applied to Al-Hijaz.

[p.124] CHAPTER XXVI.

FROM AL-SUWAYRKIYAH TO MECCAH.

WE have now left the territory of Al-Madinah. Al-Suwayrkiyah, which belongs to the Sharif of Meccah, is about twenty-eight miles distant from Hijriyah, and by dead reckoning ninety-nine miles along the road from the Prophet’s burial-place. Its bearing from the last station was S.W. 11°. The town, consisting of about one hundred houses, is built at the base and on the sides of a basaltic mass, which rises abruptly from the hard clayey plain. The summit is converted into a rude fortalice—without one, no settlement can exist in Al-Hijaz—by a bulwark of uncut stone, piled up so as to make a parapet. The lower part of the town is protected by a mud wall, with the usual semicircular towers. Inside there is a bazar, well supplied with meat (principally mutton) by the neighbouring Badawin; and wheat, barley, and dates are grown near the town. There is little to describe in the narrow streets and the mud houses, which are essentially Arab. The fields around are divided into little square plots by earthen ridges and stone walls; some of the palms are fine-grown trees, and the wells appear numerous. The water is near the surface and plentiful, but it has a brackish taste, highly disagreeable after a few days’ use, and the effects are the reverse of chalybeate.

The town belongs to the Benu Hosayn, a race of

[p.125] schismatics mentioned in the foregoing pages. They claim the allegiance of the Badawi tribes around, principally Mutayr, and I was informed that their fealty to the Prince of Meccah is merely nominal.

The morning after our arrival at Al-Suwayrkiyah witnessed a commotion in our little party: hitherto they had kept together in fear of the road. Among the number was one Ali bin Ya Sin, a perfect “old man of the sea.” By profession he was a “Zemzemi,” or dispenser of water from the Holy Well,[FN#1] and he had a handsome “palazzo” at the foot of Abu Kubays in Meccah, which he periodically converted into a boarding-house. Though past sixty, very decrepit, bent by age, white-bearded, and toothless, he still acted cicerone to pilgrims, and for that purpose travelled once every year to Al-Madinah. These trips had given him the cunning of a veteran voyageur. He lived well and cheaply; his home-made Shugduf, the model of comfort, was garnished with soft cushions and pillows, whilst from the pockets protruded select bottles of pickled limes and similar luxuries; he had his travelling Shishah (water-pipe),[FN#2] and at the halting-place, disdaining the crowded, reeking tent, he had a contrivance for converting his vehicle into a habitation. He was a type of the Arab old man. He mumbled all day and three-quarters of the night, for he had des insomnies. His nerves were so fine, that if any

[p.126] one mounted his Shugduf, the unfortunate was condemned to lie like a statue. Fidgety and priggishly neat, nothing annoyed him so much as a moment’s delay or an article out of place, a rag removed from his water-gugglet, or a cooking-pot imperfectly free from soot; and I judged his avarice by observing that he made a point of picking up and eating the grains scattered from our pomegranates, exclaiming that the heavenly seed (located there by Arab superstition) might be one of those so wantonly wasted.

Ali bin Ya Sin, returning to his native city, had not been happy in his choice of a companion this time. The other occupant of the handsome Shugduf was an ignoble-faced Egyptian from Al-Madinah. This ill-suited pair clave together for awhile, but at Al-Suwayrkiyah some dispute about a copper coin made them permanent foes. With threats and abuse such as none but an Egyptian could tamely hear, Ali kicked his quondam friend out of the vehicle. But terrified, after reflection, by the possibility that the man, now his enemy, might combine with two or three Syrians of our party to do him a harm, and frightened by a few black looks, the senior determined to fortify himself by a friend. Connected with the boy Mohammed’s family, he easily obtained an introduction to me; he kissed my hand with great servility, declared that his servant had behaved disgracefully; and begged my protection together with an occasional attendance of my “slave.”

This was readily granted in pity for the old man, who became immensely grateful. He offered at once to take Shaykh Nur into his Shugduf. The Indian boy had already reduced to ruins the frail structure of his Shibriyah by lying upon it lengthways, whereas prudent travellers sit in it cross-legged and facing the camel. Moreover, he had been laughed to scorn by the Badawin, who seeing him pull up his dromedary to mount and dismount, had questioned his sex, and determined him to be

[p.127] a woman of the “Miyan.[FN#3]” I could not rebuke them; the poor fellow’s timidity was a ridiculous contrast to the Badawi’s style of mounting; a pull at the camel’s head, the left foot placed on the neck, an agile spring, and a scramble into the saddle. Shaykh Nur, elated by the sight of old Ali’s luxuries, promised himself some joyous hours; but next morning he owned with a sigh that he had purchased splendour at the extravagant price of happiness—the senior’s tongue never rested throughout the livelong night.

During our half-halt at Al-Suwayrkiyah we determined to have a small feast; we bought some fresh dates, and we paid a dollar and a half for a sheep. Hungry travellers consider “liver and fry” a dish to set before a Shaykh. On this occasion, however, our enjoyment was marred by the water; even Soyer’s dinners would scarcely charm if washed down with cups of a certain mineral-spring found at Epsom.

We started at ten A.M. (Monday, 5th September) in a South-Easterly direction, and travelled over a flat, thinly dotted with Desert vegetation. At one P.M we passed a basaltic ridge; and then, entering a long depressed line of country, a kind of valley, paced down it five tedious hours. The Samum as usual was blowing hard, and it seemed to affect the travellers’ tempers. In one place I saw a Turk, who could not speak a word of Arabic, violently disputing with an Arab who could not understand a word of Turkish. The pilgrim insisted upon adding to the camel’s load a few dry sticks, such as are picked up for cooking. The camel-man as perseveringly threw off the extra burthen. They screamed with rage, hustled each other, and at last the Turk dealt the Arab a heavy blow. I afterwards heard that the pilgrim was mortally wounded that night, his stomach being ripped

[p.128] open with a dagger. On enquiring what had become of him, I was assured that he had been comfortably wrapped up in his shroud, and placed in a half-dug grave. This is the general practice in the case of the poor and solitary, whom illness or accident incapacitates from proceeding. It is impossible to contemplate such a fate without horror: the torturing thirst of a wound,[FN#4] the burning sun heating the brain to madness, and—worst of all, for they do not wait till death—the attacks of the jackal, the vulture, and the raven of the wild.

At six P.M., before the light of day had faded, we traversed a rough and troublesome ridge. Descending it our course lay in a southerly direction along a road flanked on the left by low hills of red sandstone and bright porphyry. About an hour afterwards we came to a basalt field, through whose blocks we threaded our way painfully and slowly, for it was then dark. At eight P.M. the camels began to stumble over the dwarf dykes of the wheat and barley fields, and presently we arrived at our halting-place, a large village called Al-Sufayna. The plain was already dotted with tents and lights. We found the Baghdad Caravan, whose route here falls into the Darb al-Sharki. It consists of a few Persians and Kurds, and collects the people of North-Eastern Arabia, Wahhabis and others. They are escorted by the Agayl tribe and by the fierce mountaineers of Jabal Shammar. Scarcely was our tent pitched, when the distant pattering of musketry and an ominous tapping of the kettle-drum sent all my companions in different directions to enquire what was the cause of quarrel. The Baghdad Cafilah, though not more than 2000 in number, men, women and children, had been proving to the Damascus Caravan, that, being perfectly ready to fight, they were not going to yield any point of precedence. From that time the two bodies

[p.129] encamped in different places. I never saw a more pugnacious assembly: a look sufficed for a quarrel. Once a Wahhabi stood in front of us, and by pointing with his finger and other insulting gestures, showed his hatred to the chibuk, in which I was peaceably indulging. It was impossible to refrain from chastising his insolence by a polite and smiling offer of the offending pipe. This made him draw his dagger without a thought; but it was sheathed again, for we all cocked our pistols, and these gentry prefer steel to lead. We had travelled about seventeen miles, and the direction of Al-Sufayna from our last halting place was South-East five degrees. Though it was night when we encamped, Shaykh Mas’ud set out to water his moaning camels: they had not quenched their thirst for three days. He returned in a depressed state, having been bled by the soldiery at the well to the extent of forty piastres, or about eight shillings.

After supper we spread our rugs and prepared to rest. And here I first remarked the coolness of the nights, proving, at this season of the year, a considerable altitude above the sea. As a general rule the atmosphere stagnated between sunrise and ten A.M., when a light wind rose. During the forenoon the breeze strengthened, and it gradually diminished through the afternoon. Often about sunset there was a gale accompanied by dry storms of dust. At Al-Sufayna, though there was no night-breeze and little dew, a blanket was necessary, and the hours of darkness were invigorating enough to mitigate the effect of the sand and Samum-ridden day. Before sleeping I was introduced to a namesake, one Shaykh Abdullah, of Meccah. Having committed his Shugduf to his son, a lad of fourteen, he had ridden forward on a dromedary, and had suddenly fallen ill. His objects in meeting me were to ask for some medicine, and for a temporary seat in my Shugduf; the latter I offered with pleasure, as the boy Mohammed was

[p.130] longing to mount a camel. The Shaykh’s illness was nothing but weakness brought on by the hardships of the journey: he attributed it to the hot wind, and to the weight of a bag of dollars which he had attached to his waist-belt. He was a man about forty, long, thin, pale, and of a purely nervous temperament; and a few questions elicited the fact that he had lately and suddenly given up his daily opium pill. I prepared one for him, placed him in my litter, and persuaded him to stow away his burden in some place where it would be less troublesome. He was my companion for two marches, at the end of which he found his own Shugduf. I never met amongst the Arab citizens a better bred or a better informed man. At Constantinople he had learned a little French, Italian, and Greek; and from the properties of a shrub to the varieties of honey,[FN#5] he was full of “ useful knowledge,” and openable as a dictionary. We parted near Meccah, where I met him only once, and then accidentally, in the Valley of Muna.

At half-past five A.M. on Tuesday, the 6th of September, we rose refreshed by the cool, comfortable night, and loaded the camels. I had an opportunity of inspecting Al-Sufayna. It is a village of fifty or sixty mud-walled, flat-roofed houses, defended by the usual rampart. Around it lie ample date-grounds, and fields of wheat, barley, and maize. Its bazar at this season of the year is well supplied: even fowls can be procured.

We travelled towards the South-East, and entered a country destitute of the low ranges of hill, which from Al-Madinah southwards had bounded the horizon. After

[p.131] a two miles’ march our camels climbed up a precipitous ridge, and then descended into a broad gravel plain. From ten to eleven A.M. our course lay southerly over a high table-land, and we afterwards traversed, for five hours and a half, a plain which bore signs of standing water. This day’s march was peculiarly Arabia. It was a desert peopled only with echoes,—a place of death for what little there is to die in it,—a wilderness where, to use my companion’s phrase, there is nothing but He.[FN#6] Nature scalped, flayed, discovered all her skeleton to the gazer’s eye. The horizon was a sea of mirage; gigantic sand-columns whirled over the plain; and on both sides of our road were huge piles of bare rock, standing detached upon the surface of sand and clay. Here they appeared in oval lumps, heaped up with a semblance of symmetry; there a single boulder stood, with its narrow foundation based upon a pedestal of low, dome-shapen rock. All were of a pink coarse-grained granite, which flakes off in large crusts under the influence of the atmosphere. I remarked one block which could not measure fewer than thirty feet in height. Through these scenes we travelled till about half-past four P.M., when the guns suddenly roared a halt. There was not a trace of human habitation around us: a few parched shrubs and the granite heaps were the only objects diversifying the hard clayey plain. Shaykh Mas’ud correctly guessed the cause of our detention at the inhospitable “halting-place of the Mutayr” (Badawin). “Cook your bread and boil your coffee,” said the old man; “the camels will rest for awhile, and the gun will sound at nightfall.”

We had passed over about eighteen miles of ground; and our present direction was South-west twenty degrees of Al-Sufayna.

At half-past ten that evening we heard the signal for

[p.132] departure, and, as the moon was still young, we prepared for a hard night’s work. We took a south-westerly course through what is called a Wa’ar—rough ground covered with thicket. Darkness fell upon us like a pall. The camels tripped and stumbled, tossing their litters like cockboats in a short sea; at times the Shugdufs were well nigh torn off their backs. When we came to a ridge worse than usual, old Mas’ud would seize my camel’s halter, and, accompanied by his son and nephew bearing lights, encourage the animals with gesture and voice. It was a strange, wild scene. The black basaltic field was dotted with the huge and doubtful forms of spongy-footed camels with silent tread, looming like phantoms in the midnight air; the hot wind moaned, and whirled from the torches flakes and sheets of flame and fiery smoke, whilst ever and anon a swift-travelling Takht-rawan, drawn by mules, and surrounded by runners bearing gigantic mashals or cressets,[FN#7] threw a passing glow of red light upon the dark road and the dusky multitude. On this occasion the rule was “every man for himself.” Each pressed forward into the best path, thinking only of preceding his neighbour. The Syrians, amongst whom our little party had become entangled, proved most unpleasant companions: they often stopped the way, insisting upon their right to precedence. On one occasion a horseman had the audacity to untie the halter of my dromedary, and thus to cast us adrift, as it were, in order to make room for some excluded friend. I seized my sword; but Shaykh Abdullah stayed my hand, and addressed the intruder in terms sufficiently violent to make him slink away. Nor was this the only occasion on which my

[p.133] companion was successful with the Syrians. He would begin with a mild “Move a little, O my father!” followed, if fruitless, by “Out of the way, O Father of Syria[FN#8]!” and if still ineffectual, advancing to a “Begone, O he!” This ranged between civility and sternness. If without effect, it was supported by revilings to the “Abusers of the Salt,” the “Yazid,” the “Offspring of Shimr.” Another remark which I made about my companion’s conduct well illustrates the difference between the Eastern and the Western man. When traversing a dangerous place, Shaykh Abdullah the European attended to his camel with loud cries of “Hai! Hai[FN#9]!” and an occasional switching. Shaykh Abdullah the Asiatic commended himself to Allah by repeated ejaculations of Ya Satir! Ya Sattar[FN#10]!

[p.134]The morning of Wednesday (September 7th) broke as we entered a wide plain. In many places were signs of water: lines of basalt here and there seamed the surface, and wide sheets of the tufaceous gypsum called by the Arabs Sabkhah shone like mirrors set in the russet framework of the flat. This substance is found in cakes, often a foot long by an inch in depth, curled by the sun’s rays and overlying clay into which water had sunk. After our harassing night, day came on with a sad feeling of oppression, greatly increased by the unnatural glare:—

“In vain the sight, dejected to the ground, Stoop’d for relief: thence hot ascending streams And keen reflection pain’d.”

We were disappointed in our expectations of water, which usually abounds near this station, as its name, Al-Ghadir, denotes. At ten A.M. we pitched the tent in the first convenient spot, and we lost no time in stretching our cramped limbs upon the bosom of mother Earth. From the halting-place of the Mutayr to Al-Ghadir is a march of about twenty miles, and the direction south-west twenty-one degrees. Al-Ghadir is an extensive plain, which probably presents the appearance of a lake after heavy rains. It is overgrown in parts with Desert vegetation, and requires nothing but a regular supply of water to make it useful to man. On the East it is bounded by a wall of rock, at whose base are three wells, said to have been dug by the Caliph Harun. They are guarded by a Burj, or tower, which betrays symptoms of decay.

In our anxiety to rest we had strayed from the Damascus Caravan amongst the mountaineers of Shammar. Our Shaykh Mas’ud manifestly did not like the company; for shortly after three P.M. he insisted upon our striking the tent and rejoining the Hajj, which lay encamped about two miles distant in the western part of the basin. We

[p.135] loaded, therefore, and half an hour before sunset found ourselves in more congenial society. To my great disappointment, a stir was observable in the Caravan. I at once understood that another night-march was in store for us.

At six P.M. we again mounted, and turned towards the Eastern plain. A heavy shower was falling upon the Western hills, whence came damp and dangerous blasts. Between nine P.M. and the dawn of the next day we had a repetition of the last night’s scenes, over a road so rugged and dangerous, that I wondered how men could prefer to travel in the darkness. But the camels of Damascus were now worn out with fatigue; they could not endure the sun, and our time was too precious for a halt. My night was spent perched upon the front bar of my Shugduf, encouraging the dromedary; and that we had not one fall excited my extreme astonishment. At five A.M. (Thursday, 8th September) we entered a wide plain thickly clothed with the usual thorny trees, in whose strong grasp many a Shugduf lost its covering, and not a few were dragged with their screaming inmates to the ground. About five hours afterwards we crossed a high ridge, and saw below us the camp of the Caravan, not more than two miles distant. As we approached it, a figure came running out to meet us. It was the boy Mohammed, who, heartily tired of riding a dromedary with his friend, and possibly hungry, hastened to inform my companion Abdullah that he would lead him to his Shugduf and to his son. The Shaykh, a little offended by the fact that for two days not a friend nor an acquaintance had taken the trouble to see or to inquire about him, received Mohammed roughly; but the youth, guessing the grievance, explained it away by swearing that he and all the party had tried in vain to find us. This wore the semblance of truth: it is almost impossible to come upon any one who strays from his place in so large and motley a body.

[p.136]At eleven A.M. we had reached our station. It is about wenty-four miles from Al-Ghadir, and its direction is South-east ten degrees. It is called Al-Birkat (the Tank), from a large and now ruinous cistern built of hewn stone by the Caliph Harun.[FN#11] The land belongs to the Utaybah Badawin, the bravest and most ferocious tribe in Al-Hijaz; and the citizens denote their dread of these banditti by asserting that to increase their courage they drink their enemy’s blood.[FN#12] My companions shook their heads when questioned upon the subject, and prayed that we might not become too well acquainted with them—an ill-omened speech!

The Pasha allowed us a rest of five hours at Al-Birkat: we spent them in my tent, which was crowded with Shaykh Abdullah’s friends. To requite me for this inconvenience, he prepared for me an excellent water-pipe, a cup of coffee, which, untainted by cloves and by cinnamon, would have been delicious, and a dish of dry fruits. As we were now near the Holy City, all the Meccans were busy canvassing for lodgers and offering their services to pilgrims. Quarrels, too, were of hourly occurrence. In our party was an Arnaut, a white-bearded old man, so

[p.137] decrepit that he could scarcely stand, and yet so violent that no one could manage him but his African slave, a brazen-faced little wretch about fourteen years of age. Words were bandied between this angry senior and Shaykh Mas’ud, when the latter insinuated sarcastically, that if the former had teeth he would be more intelligible. The Arnaut in his rage seized a pole, raised it, and delivered a blow which missed the camel-man, but, which brought the striker headlong to the ground. Mas’ud exclaimed, with shrieks of rage, “Have we come to this, that every old-woman Turk smites us?” Our party had the greatest trouble to quiet the quarrel[l]ers. The Arab listened to us when we threatened him with the Pasha. But the Arnaut, whose rage was “like red-hot steel,” would hear nothing but our repeated declarations, that unless he behaved more like a pilgrim, we should be compelled to leave him and his slave behind.

At four P.M. we left Al-Birkat, and travelled Eastwards over rolling ground thickly wooded. There was a network of footpaths through the thickets, and clouds obscured the moon; the consequence was inevitable loss of way. About 2 A.M. we began ascending hills in a south-westerly direction, and presently we fell into the bed of a large rock-girt Fiumara, which runs from east to west. The sands were overgrown with saline and salsolaceous plants; the Coloquintida, which, having no support, spreads along the ground[FN#13]; the Senna, with its small green leaf; the Rhazya stricta[FN#14]; and a large luxuriant variety of the Asclepias gigantea,[FN#15] cottoned over with

[p.138] mist and dew. At 6 A.M. (Sept. 9th) we left the Fiumara, and, turning to the West, we arrived about an hour afterwards at the station. Al-Zaribah, “the valley,” is an undulating plain amongst high granite hills. In many parts it was faintly green; water was close to the surface, and rain stood upon the ground. During the night we had travelled about twenty-three miles, and our present station was south-east 56° from our last.

Having pitched the tent and eaten and slept, we prepared to perform the ceremony of Al-Ihram (assuming the pilgrim-garb), as Al-Zaribah is the Mikat, or the appointed place.[FN#16] Between the noonday and the afternoon prayers a barber attended to shave our heads, cut our nails, and trim our mustachios. Then, having bathed and perfumed ourselves,—the latter is a questionable

[p.139] point,—we donned the attire, which is nothing but two new cotton cloths, each six feet long by three and a half broad, white, with narrow red stripes and fringes: in fact, the costume called Al-Eddeh, in the baths at Cairo.[FN#17] One of these sheets, technically termed the Rida, is thrown over the back, and, exposing the arm and shoulder, is knotted at the right side in the style Wishah. The Izar is wrapped round the loins from waist to knee, and, knotted or tucked in at the middle, supports itself. Our heads were bare, and nothing was allowed upon the instep.[FN#18] It is said that some clans of Arabs still preserve this religious but most uncomfortable costume; it is doubtless of ancient date, and to this day, in the regions lying west of the Red Sea, it continues to be the common dress of the people.

After the toilette, we were placed with our faces in the direction of Meccah, and ordered to say aloud,[FN#19] “I vow this Ihram of Hajj (the pilgrimage) and the Umrah (the Little pilgrimage) to Allah Almighty!” Having thus performed a two-bow prayer, we repeated, without rising from the sitting position, these words, “O Allah! verily I purpose the Hajj and the Umrah, then enable me to accomplish the two, and accept them both of me, and make both blessed to me!” Followed the Talbiyat, or exclaiming—

“Here I am! O Allah! here am I— No partner hast Thou, here am I; Verily the praise and the grace are Thine, and the empire—

[p.140] No partner hast Thou, here am I[FN#20]!” And we were warned to repeat these words as often as possible, until the conclusion of the ceremonies. Then Shaykh Abdullah, who acted as director of our consciences, bade us be good pilgrims, avoiding quarrels, immorality, bad language, and light conversation. We must so reverence life that we should avoid killing game, causing an animal to fly, and even pointing it out for destruction[FN#21]; nor should we scratch ourselves, save with the open palm, lest vermin be destroyed, or a hair uprooted by the nail. We were to respect the sanctuary by sparing the trees, and not to pluck a single blade of grass. As regards personal considerations, we were to abstain from all oils, perfumes, and unguents; from washing the head with mallow or with lote leaves; from dyeing, shaving, cutting, or vellicating a single pile or hair; and though we might take advantage of shade, and even form it with upraised hands, we must by no means cover our sconces. For each infraction of these ordinances we must sacrifice a sheep[FN#22]; and it is commonly said by Moslems that none

[p.141] but the Prophet could be perfect in the intricacies of pilgrimage. Old Ali began with an irregularity: he declared that age prevented his assuming the garb, but that, arrived at Meccah, he would clear himself by an offering.

The wife and daughters of a Turkish pilgrim of our party assumed the Ihram at the same time as ourselves. They appeared dresse in white garments; and they had exchanged the Lisam, that coquettish fold of muslin which veils without concealing the lower part of the face, for a hideous mask, made of split, dried, and plaited palm-leaves, with two “bulls’-eyes” for light.[FN#23] I could not help laughing when these strange figures met my sight, and, to judge from the shaking of their shoulders, they were not less susceptible to the merriment which they had caused.

At three P.M. we left Al-Zaribah, travelling towards the South-West, and a wondrously picturesque scene met the eye. Crowds hurried along, habited in the pilgrim-garb, whose whiteness contrasted strangely with their black skins; their newly shaven heads glistening in the sun, and their long black hair streaming in the wind. The rocks rang with shouts of Labbayk! Labbayk! At a pass we fell in with the Wahhabis, accompanying the Baghdad Caravan, screaming “Here am I”; and, guided by a large loud kettle-drum, they followed in double file the camel of a standard-bearer, whose green flag bore in huge white letters the formula of the Moslem creed. They were wild-looking mountaineers, dark and fierce, with hair twisted into thin Dalik or plaits: each was armed with a long spear, a matchlock, or a dagger. They were seated upon coarse wooden saddles, without cushions or stirrups, a fine saddle-cloth alone denoting a

[p.142] chief. The women emulated the men; they either guided their own dromedaries, or, sitting in pillion, they clung to their husbands; veils they disdained, and their countenances certainly belonged not to a “soft sex.” These Wahhabis were by no means pleasant companions. Most of them were followed by spare dromedaries, either unladen or carrying water-skins, fodder, fuel, and other necessaries for the march. The beasts delighted in dashing furiously through our file, which being lashed together, head and tail, was thrown each time into the greatest confusion. And whenever we were observed smoking, we were cursed aloud for Infidels and Idolaters.

Looking back at Al-Zaribah, soon after our departure, I saw a heavy nimbus settle upon the hill-tops, a sheet of rain being stretched between it and the plain. The low grumbling of thunder sounded joyfully in our ears. We hoped for a shower, but were disappointed by a dust-storm, which ended with a few heavy drops. There arose a report that the Badawin had attacked a party of Meccans with stones, and the news caused men to look exceeding grave.

At five P.M. we entered the wide bed of the Fiumara, down which we were to travel all night. Here the country falls rapidly towards the sea, as the increasing heat of the air, the direction of the watercourses, and signs of violence in the torrent-bed show. The Fiumara varies in breadth from a hundred and fifty feet to three-quarters of a mile; its course, I was told, is towards the South-West, and it enters the sea near Jeddah. The channel is a coarse sand, with here and there masses of sheet rock and patches of thin vegetation.

At about half-past five P.M. we entered a suspicious-looking place. On the right was a stony buttress, along whose base the stream, when there is one, swings; and to this depression was our road limited by the rocks and thorn trees which filled the other half of the channel.

[p.143] The left side was a precipice, grim and barren, but not so abrupt as its brother. Opposite us the way seemed barred by piles of hills, crest rising above crest into the far blue distance. Day still smiled upon the upper peaks, but the lower slopes and the Fiumara bed were already curtained with grey sombre shade.

A damp seemed to fall upon our spirits as we approached this Valley Perilous. I remarked that the voices of the women and children sank into silence, and the loud Labbayk of the pilgrims were gradually stilled. Whilst still speculating upon the cause of this phenomenon, it became apparent. A small curl of the smoke, like a lady’s ringlet, on the summit of the right-hand precipice, caught my eye; and simultaneous with the echoing crack of the matchlock, a high-trotting dromedary in front of me rolled over upon the sands,—a bullet had split its heart,—throwing the rider a goodly somersault of five or six yards.

Ensued terrible confusion; women screamed, children cried, and men vociferated, each one striving with might and main to urge his animal out of the place of death. But the road being narrow, they only managed to jam the vehicles in a solid immovable mass. At every match-lock shot, a shudder ran through the huge body, as when the surgeon’s scalpel touches some more sensitive nerve. The Irregular horsemen, perfectly useless, galloped up and down over the stones, shouting to and ordering one another. The Pasha of the army had his carpet spread at the foot of the left-hand precipice, and debated over his pipe with the officers what ought to be done. No good genius whispered “Crown the heights.”

Then it was that the conduct of the Wahhabis found favour in my eyes. They came up, galloping their camels,—

“Torrents less rapid, and less rash,—

with their elf-locks tossing in the wind, and their flaring

[p.144] matches casting a strange lurid light over their features. Taking up a position, one body began to fire upon the Utaybah robbers, whilst two or three hundred, dismounting, swarmed up the hill under the guidance of the Sharif Zayd. I had remarked this nobleman at Al-Madinah as a model specimen of the pure Arab. Like all Sharifs, he is celebrated for bravery, and has killed many with his own hand.[FN#24] When urged at Al-Zaribah to ride into Meccah, he swore that he would not leave the Caravan till in sight of the walls; and, fortunately for the pilgrims, he kept his word. Presently the firing was heard far in our rear, the robbers having fled. The head of the column advanced, and the dense body of pilgrims opened out. Our forced halt was now exchanged for a flight. It required much management to steer our Desert-craft clear of danger; but Shaykh Mas’ud was equal to the occasion. That many were not, was evident by the boxes and baggage that strewed the shingles. I had no means of ascertaining the number of men killed and wounded: reports were contradictory, and exaggeration unanimous. The robbers were said to be a hundred and fifty in number; their object was plunder, and they would eat the shot camels. But their principal ambition was the boast, “We, the Utaybah, on such and such a [p.145] night, stopped the Sultan’s Mahmil one whole hour in the Pass.”

At the beginning of the skirmish I had primed my pistols, and sat with them ready for use. But soon seeing that there was nothing to be done, and wishing to make an impression,—nowhere does Bobadil now “go down” so well as in the East,—I called aloud for my supper. Shaykh Nur, exanimate with fear, could not move. The boy Mohammed ejaculated only an “Oh, sir!” and the people around exclaimed in disgust, “By Allah, he eats!” Shaykh Abdullah, the Meccan, being a man of spirit, was amused by the spectacle. “Are these Afghan manners, Effendim?” he enquired from the Shugduf behind me. “Yes,” I replied aloud, “in my country we always dine before an attack of robbers, because that gentry is in the habit of sending men to bed supperless.” The Shaykh laughed aloud, but those around him looked offended. I thought the bravado this time mal place; but a little event which took place on my way to Jeddah proved that it was not quite a failure.

As we advanced, our escort took care to fire every large dry Asclepias, to disperse the shades which buried us. Again the scene became wondrous wild:—

“Full many a waste I’ve wander’d o’er, Clomb many a crag, cross’d many a shore, But, by my halidome, A scene so rude, so wild as this, Yet so sublime in barrenness, Ne’er did my wandering footsteps press, Where’er I chanced to roam.”

On either side were ribbed precipices, dark, angry, and towering above, till their summits mingled with the glooms of night; and between them formidable looked the chasm, down which our host hurried with shouts and discharges of matchlocks. The torch-smoke and the night-fires of flaming Asclepias formed a canopy, sable

[p.146] above and livid red below; it hung over our heads like a sheet, and divided the cliffs into two equal parts. Here the fire flashed fiercely from a tall thorn, that crackled and shot up showers of sparks into the air; there it died away in lurid gleams, which lit up a truly Stygian scene. As usual, however, the picturesque had its inconveniences. There was no path. Rocks, stone-banks, and trees obstructed our passage. The camels, now blind in darkness, then dazzled by a flood of light, stumbled frequently; in some places slipping down a steep descent, in others sliding over a sheet of mud. There were furious quarrels and fierce language between camel-men and their hirers, and threats to fellow-travellers; in fact, we were united in discord. I passed that night crying, “Hai! Hai!” switching the camel, and fruitlessly endeavouring to fustigate Mas’ud’s nephew, who resolutely slept upon the water-bags. During the hours of darkness we made four or five halts, when we boiled coffee and smoked pipes; but man and beasts were beginning to suffer from a deadly fatigue.

Dawn (Saturday, Sept. 10th) found us still travelling down the Fiumara, which here is about a hundred yards broad. The granite hills on both sides were less precipitous; and the borders of the torrent-bed became natural quays of stiff clay, which showed a water-mark of from twelve to fifteen feet in height. In many parts the bed was muddy; and the moist places, as usual, caused accidents. I happened to be looking back at Shaykh Abdullah, who was then riding in old Ali bin Ya Sin’s fine Shugduf; suddenly the camel’s four legs disappeared from under him, his right side flattening the ground, and the two riders were pitched severally out of the smashed vehicle. Abdullah started up furious, and with great zest abused the Badawin, who were absent. “Feed these Arabs,” he exclaimed, quoting a Turkish proverb, “and

[p.147] they will fire at Heaven!” But I observed that, when Shaykh Mas’ud came up, the citizen was only gruff.

We then turned Northward, and sighted Al-Mazik, more generally known as Wady Laymun, the Valley of Limes. On the right bank of the Fiumara stood the Meccan Sharif’s state pavilion, green and gold: it was surrounded by his attendants, and he had prepared to receive the Pasha of the Caravan. We advanced half a mile, and encamped temporarily in a hill-girt bulge of the Fiumara bed. At eight A.M. we had travelled about twenty-four miles from Al-Zaribah, and the direction of our present station was South-west 50°.

Shaykh Mas’ud allowed us only four hours’ halt; he wished to precede the main body. After breaking our fast joyously upon limes, pomegranates, and fresh dates, we sallied forth to admire the beauties of the place. We are once more on classic ground—the ground of the ancient Arab poets,—

“Deserted is the village—waste the halting place and home At Mina, o’er Rijam and Ghul wild beasts unheeded roam, On Rayyan hill the channel lines have left their naked trace, Time-worn, as primal Writ that dints the mountain’s flinty face;[FN#25]”—

and this Wady, celebrated for the purity of its air, has from remote ages been a favourite resort of the Meccans. Nothing can be more soothing to the brain than the dark-green foliage of the limes and pomegranates; and from

[p.148] the base of the Southern hill bursts a bubbling stream, whose

“Chaire, fresche e dolci acque”

flow through the gardens, filling them with the most delicious of melodies, the gladdest sound which Nature in these regions knows.

Exactly at noon Mas’ud seized the halter of the foremost camel, and we started down the Fiumara. Troops of Badawi girls looked over the orchard walls laughingly, and children came out to offer us fresh fruit and sweet water. At two P.M., travelling South-west, we arrived at a point where the torrent-bed turns to the right[;] and, quitting it, we climbed with difficulty over a steep ridge of granite. Before three o’clock we entered a hill-girt plain, which my companions called “Sola.” In some places were clumps of trees, and scattered villages warned us that we were approaching a city. Far to the left rose the blue peaks of Taif, and the mountain road, a white thread upon the nearer heights, was pointed out to me. Here I first saw the tree, or rather shrub, which bears the balm of Gilead, erst so celebrated for its tonic and stomachic properties.[FN#26] I told Shaykh Mas’ud to break off a

[p.149] twig, which he did heedlessly. The act was witnessed by our party with a roar of laughter; and the astounded Shaykh was warned that he had become subject to an atoning sacrifice. [FN#27] Of course he denounced me as the instigator, and I could not fairly refuse assistance. The tree has of late years been carefully described by many botanists; I will only say that the bark resembled in colour a cherry-stick pipe, the inside was a light yellow, and the juice made my fingers stick together.

At four P.M. we came to a steep and rocky Pass, up which we toiled with difficulty. The face of the country was rising once more, and again presented the aspect of numerous small basins divided and surrounded by hills. As we

[p.150] jogged on we were passed by the cavalcade of no less a personage than the Sharif of Meccah. Abd al-Muttalib bin Ghalib is a dark, beardless old man with African features derived from his mother. He was plainly dressed in white garments and a white muslin turband,[FN#28] which made him look jet black; he rode an ambling mule, and the only emblem of his dignity was the large green satin umbrella born[e] by an attendant on foot.[FN#29] Scattered around him were about forty matchlock men, mostly slaves. At long intervals, after their father, came his four sons, Riza Bey, Abdullah, Ali, and Ahmad, the latter still a child. The three elder brothers rode splendid dromedaries at speed; they were young men of light complexion, with the true Meccan cast of features, showily dressed in bright coloured silks, and armed, to denote their rank, with sword and gold-hilted dagger.[FN#30]

[p.151]We halted as evening approached, and strained our eyes, but all in vain, to catch sight of Meccah, which lies in a winding valley. By Shaykh Abdullah’s direction I recited, after the usual devotions, the following prayer. The reader is for[e]warned that it is difficult to preserve the flowers of Oriental rhetoric in a European tongue.

[p.152]O Allah! verily this is Thy Safeguard (Amn) and Thy (Harim)! Into it whoso entereth becometh safe (Amin). So deny (Harrim) my Flesh and Blood, my Bones and Skin, to Hell-fire. O Allah! save me from Thy Wrath on the Day when Thy Servants shall be raised from the Dead. I conjure Thee by this that Thou art Allah, besides whom is none (Thou only), the Merciful, the Compassionate. And have Mercy upon our Lord Mohammed, and upon the Progeny of our Lord Mohammed, and upon his Followers, One and All!” This was concluded with the “Talbiyat,” and with an especial prayer for myself.

We again mounted, and night completed our disappointment. About one A.M. I was aroused by general excitement. “Meccah! Meccah!” cried some voices; “The Sanctuary! O the Sanctuary!” exclaimed others; and all burst into loud “Labbayk,” not unfrequently broken by sobs. I looked out from my litter, and saw by the light of the Southern stars the dim outlines of a large city, a shade darker than the surrounding plain. We were passing over the last ridge by a cutting called the Saniyat Kuda’a, the winding-place of the cut.[FN#31] The “winding path” is flanked on both sides by watch-towers, which command the Darb al-Ma’ala or road leading from the North into Meccah. Thence we passed into the Ma’abidah (Northern suburb), where the Sharif’s Palace is built.[FN#32] After this, on the left hand, came

[p.153] the deserted abode of the Sharif bin Aun, now said to be a “haunted house.[FN#33]” Opposite to it lies the Jannat al-Ma’ala, the holy cemetery of Meccah. Thence, turning to the right, we entered the Sulaymaniyah or Afghan quarter. Here the boy Mohammed, being an inhabitant of the Shamiyah or Syrian ward, thought proper to display some apprehension. The two are on bad terms; children never meet without exchanging volleys of stones, and men fight furiously with quarterstaves. Sometimes, despite the terrors of religion, the knife and sabre are drawn. But their hostilities have their code. If a citizen be killed, there is a subscription for blood-money. An inhabitant of one quarter, passing singly through another, becomes a guest; once beyond the walls, he is likely to be beaten to insensibility by his hospitable foes.

At the Sulaymaniyah we turned off the main road into a byway, and ascended by narrow lanes the rough heights of Jabal Hindi, upon which stands a small whitewashed and crenellated building called a fort. Thence descending, we threaded dark streets, in places crowded with rude cots and dusky figures, and finally at two A.M. we found ourselves at the door of the boy Mohammed’s house.

[p.154]From Wady Laymun to Meccah the distance, according to my calculation, was about twenty-three miles, the direction South-East forty-five degrees. We arrived on the morning of Sunday, the 7th Zu’l Hijjah (11th September, 1853), and had one day before the beginning of the pilgrimage to repose and visit the Harim.

I conclude this chapter with a few remarks upon the watershed of Al-Hijaz. The country, in my humble opinion, has a compound slope, Southwards and Westwards. I have, however, little but the conviction of the modern Arabs to support the assertion that this part of Arabia declines from the North. All declare the course of water to be Southerly, and believe the fountain of Arafat to pass underground from Baghdad. The slope, as geographers know, is still a disputed point. Ritter, Jomard, and some old Arab authors, make the country rise towards the south, whilst Wallin and others express an opposite opinion. From the sea to Al-Musahhal is a gentle rise. The water-marks of the Fiumaras show that Al-Madinah is considerably above the coast, though geographers may not be correct in claiming for Jabal Radhwa a height of six thousand feet; yet that elevation is not perhaps too great for the plateau upon which stands the Apostle’s burial-place. From Al-Madinah to Al-Suwayrkiyah is another gentle rise, and from the latter to Al-Zaribah stagnating water denotes a level. I believe the report of a perennial lake on the eastern boundary of Al-Hijaz, as little as the river placed by Ptolemy between Yambu’ and Meccah. No Badawi could tell me of this feature, which, had it existed, would have changed the whole conditions and history of the [p.155] country; we know the Greek’s river to be a Fiumara, and the lake probably owes its existence to a similar cause, a heavy fall of rain. Beginning at Al-Zaribah is a decided fall, which continues to the sea. The Arafat torrent sweeps from East to West with great force, sometimes carrying away the habitations, and even injuring the sanctuary.[FN#34]

[FN#1] There are certain officers called Zemzemi, who distribute the holy water. In the case of a respectable pilgrim they have a large jar of the shape described in Chap. iv., marked with his names and titles, and sent every morning to his lodgings. If he be generous, one or more will be placed in the Harim, that men may drink in his honour. The Zemzemi expects a present varying from five to eleven dollars. [FN#2] The shishah, smoked on the camel, is a tin canister divided into two compartments, the lower half for the water, the upper one for the tobacco. The cover is pierced with holes to feed the fire, and a short hookah-snake projects from one side. [FN#3] The Hindustani “sir.” Badawin address it slightingly to Indians,