Chapter 15

RETRIBUTION FOR OUR FOES

We reached Ghail Babwazir in three hours, at half-past five, passing through several oases. It is a large town. Some children, as I came round a corner, cried, 'Let us flee! here is a demon' (_afrit_).

All the guns of our escort were fired, and we were ushered into a house, where there was a good-sized room with some matting.

We were all very tired, hot and hungry, but alas for Arab hospitality! No coffee was brought, not even water, and when our servants asked for water and wood--'Show us first your money' was the answer they got.

We had a very public visit from the governor, who is called sultan, and who asked us if we had had a pleasant journey, and wondered how we could have been so many days on the road.

He was told of all our troubles, and took the Hamoumi, Mohammad, who shot at us, a prisoner, and his _jembia_ (or as they say in Southern Arabia _ghembia_), without which he is ashamed to be seen, was given into my husband's custody.

Our expedition all passed a peaceful night, thankful to be in security after eighteen days of anxiety, never knowing what ambushes we might be led into; but Talib we heard did not sleep at all and was quite ill from fright, as contrary to his wishes he was, said the sultan, to be taken to Sheher with us on the morrow.

Ghail Babwazir is an oasis or series of oases of rank fertility, caused by a stream the water of which is warm and bitter, and which is conducted by channels cut in the rock in various directions.

Acres and acres of tobacco, bananas, Indian corn, cotton, and other crops are thus produced in the wilderness, and this cultivation has given rise to the overgrown village.

The stream was discovered about five hundred years ago by one Sheikh Omar, and before that time all this part was waste ground.

This fertilising spring rises under a hill to the east, where a large reservoir has been dug out. Above on the hill are some Arab ruins, places where things were stored, and there is a road up. Canals cut some twenty feet deep, like the _kanats_ of Persia, conduct the water to the fields. The chief product is tobacco, known as Hamoumi tobacco.

Our roof happened to command a view of the terrace where a bride and her handmaidens were making merry with drums and coffee. In spite of the frowns and gesticulations of the order-keeper, who flourished her stick at us and bade us begone, we were able to get a peep, forbidden to males, at the blushing bride. She wore on her head large silver bosses like tin plates, her ears were weighed down with jewels, her fingers were straight with rings, and her arms a mass of bracelets up to the elbow, and her breast was hidden by a multiplicity of necklaces. Her face, of course, was painted yellow, with black lines over her eyes and mouth like heavy moustaches, and from her nose hung something which looked to us like a gold coin. The bride herself evidently had no objection to my husband's presence, but the threatening aspect of her women compelled us reluctantly to retire.

On the 29th we set out for Sheher, or Shaher Bander as it is called, a most cheerful set of people, at least as far as our own immediate party was concerned; some of the others had little cause for pleasant anticipations.

We were in advance of the baggage camels, riding our horses and donkey, and accompanied by Talib, without his dagger, on his camel. Matthaios, the Jabberi, and the soldiers surrounding the prisoner Mohammad, attached by a long rope to my husband's horse, an arrangement not invented by my husband, but which we enjoyed very much, and no wonder, after all we had suffered!

The servants all thought that as soon as might be after getting to Sheher we should take ship for Aden, and many were the plans made for vengeance upon Saleh once he was safe in our clutches on board that ship.

We, however, had quite another design, which was that my husband and Imam Sharif and I should go off to Bir Borhut, if the safety of our lives could in any way be guaranteed, we taking only Noura, one of the Indian servants, as our own attendant. Of course the others would be with their master.

Several times we went by small passes through gypsum hills, lovely to behold, and twice we passed water, not so bitter as Ghail Babwazir. We had plenty of up and down hill, but never had to dismount. The way was, for the most part, arid and uninteresting. Four years before, in these passes, the Hamoumi had attacked a caravan and killed nine men, taking eighty camels and 2,000 rupees. They must have had _siyara_, though, from some tribe. Each tribe has its fixed tariff. The Hamoumi have twenty-seven dollars, the Jabberi seventy, the Tamimi one hundred, &c., and when this sum is paid, if you have only one of each tribe with you, you are safe.

When we had gone two-thirds of our way we reached a palm-shadowed village called Zarafa. Here we went into a house to eat our luncheon and obtain some coffee, which had to be prepaid.

We reached Sheher about four o'clock. The last three miles, going eastward, were close along the shore at low tide. It was quite delightful, and we were very much amused at all the crabs we put to flight.

We were very glad to dismount in the middle of the town, at the gate of an old castle, and were shown up into a room about 50 feet by 30 feet, with a good many chairs, tables, and sofas, arranged stiffly, and all dusty. Indian cotton carpets covered the floor, and there was a great number of very common lamps with lustres.

We waited wearily nearly an hour, while the Sultan Hussein Mia and his brother, Sultan Ghalib Mia, put on their best clothes, and at last we became so out of patience that my husband sent a message to the wazir, asking him to be kind enough to send a man to point out to us a spot where we might pitch our tents, and an answer then was returned that the sultans were coming. When they appeared, very gorgeous, our letter from Aden was given, with that from Sultan Salàh of Shibahm, and my husband requested leave to make a camp. Sultan Hussein looked round him and asked if this room would not do? Imam Sharif explained to him that we were rather a large party for such accommodation (the whole of our expedition being then present in the room), that we should require separate apartments, and, therefore, would prefer a private house. We were given tea in crockery of the commonest kind; I had an odd cup and saucer which both leaked badly, and I feared my cup would fall into four pieces, but they had come from afar, and I dare say the sultans would be astonished at the care we take of cracked cups from foreign parts.

We were then led on foot quite to the other side of the town, where there was a 'summer-house' partly constructed and partly furnished, the builders were on one side and we on the other. We had a room with a carpet, a settee, and two little tables, and set up our own beds and chairs. We had rather a good dinner served by an Indian butler who could talk English, so we had hopes of being very comfortable. The summer-house at that time consisted of two very long rooms back to back, and several rooms at each end projecting so as to form a verandah for each of the long rooms. The back one was quite unfinished then, and upstairs there were only rudimentary walls traced out, three or four feet high. There was a great square wall surrounding a piece of desert in process of being transformed into a garden; the sea sand came quite up to the wall.

We found the heat intense, so we had our tent somehow fastened up on the roof to sleep. All the sides had to be tied up for coolness, but the defences against mosquitoes and fleas were very stifling. Goats had been kept on the roof, and hence the fleas. We could only stay there till sunrise, and then had to betake ourselves to our suffocating room, to find the flies wide awake. We had to use our mosquito curtains by day on their account. In Shibahm the mosquitoes are awake by day only, and at Aden both by day and night.

Imam Sharif found great favour in the eyes of the two sultans, who asked him to supper every day. The conversations he had with them about us, and the letters they had received from their cousin at Shibahm, did us far more good than the letter from the wali of Aden. They said this gave them no idea other than that my husband was 'only a merchant' or a person of that rank. They were very hospitable to us while we were in their town.

They examined into our complaints with regard to the treatment we had experienced on our journey. Mohammad, who had shot at us, and Ali, the one who had extorted the money from us, were both imprisoned, and this money was made to pay for our last two days' journey. Talib was forced to repay the thirty dollars and sent to summon the heads of those villages which had fired upon us, his sword being taken from him as a disgrace, and all were to wait in Sheher, till after Ramadan was over, to be judged.

This, of course, was pleasing to us; however, no money could repay us for the anxiety of this journey under the protection of the Jabberi, and we considered it as quite the worst experience we had ever undergone in the course of any of our travels.

On reflection we could attribute these troubles neither to any indiscretion on our part, nor to neglect of care on the part of the sultan of Shibahm.

We have always been perfectly polite in respecting the prejudices of the inhabitants of the countries through which we have travelled, never, on the one hand, classing all non-Europeans as 'natives' and despising high and low alike as inferior to ourselves in intelligence and everything else, nor, on the other, feeling that, having seen a few men, not quite as white as ourselves, in no matter what country or continent, we thoroughly understood how to manage 'these niggers.'

Sultan Salàh did, assuredly, his very uttermost to secure our safety and comfort, quite disinterestedly. He absolutely refused to take a sum of money, saying, 'I want nothing, I have plenty.' When we determined to have some money melted and to have a silver-gilt present made for him, he heard of our vain inquiries for a non-existent jeweller, and earnestly begged that we would do no such thing. 'He loved the English, and only asked that my husband would mention him favourably to the English Government'--and this favourable mention has gained him nothing.

If when my husband asked that a reliable interpreter should be recommended to him, he had been sent a man favourably disposed towards ourselves, and capable of inspiring respect in others, instead of a little clerk, aged twenty, from a coal-office, a fanatical Moslem who hated his employers, we should have been in a much better position, and have been able to pass on from the Jabberi to the Hamoumi, whereas travelling with the Jabberi through the Hamoumi country we had to encounter their enemies as well as our own.

Sheher is a detestable place by the sea, set in a wilderness of sand. Once it was the chief commercial port of the Hadhramout valley, but now Makalla has quite superseded it, for Sheher is nothing but an open roadstead with a couple of _baggalas_ belonging to the family of Al Kaiti, which generally have to go to Hami to shelter, and its buildings are now falling into ruins, since the Kattiri were driven away. Why anyone should choose such a place for a town, and continue to live in it, is mysterious. It is a place so unpleasant with flies and fleas, that the inhabitants often go to sleep on the seashore. The doors of the houses are very prettily carved all over, also the cupboards, and lintels to doors; we tried to buy some but could not. They have texts from the Koran carved on them. We were not allowed to buy them for fear we should work magic with them.

There is a very picturesque mosque with a sloping minaret, white domes, palm-trees, and a well, and hard by a house we saw a miniature mosque--a sort of doll's house--built for children who play at prayers. They can just crawl into it. It is hung with lamps, and the children make mud pies of various shapes, which they put in it. Especially during Ramadan they are encouraged to play at mosque, and the lamps are lit up every evening. It is 3 feet high and 3 feet square, and has its little dome, minaret, and parapet like other mosques.

There is an imposing gateway to the town--but built in a kind of Romanesque style which does not suit Arabia--with long guard-houses on each side, and various quaint weapons and powder-flasks hung upon it.

Ghalib, the eldest son and heir of the chief of the Al Kaiti family, ruled here as the vicegerent of his father, who is in India as _jemadar_ or general of the Arab troops, nearly all Hadhrami, in the service of the Nizam of Hyderabad. Ghalib was quite an oriental dandy, who lived a life of some rapidity when in India, so that his father thought it as well to send him to rule in Sheher, where the opportunities for mischief are not so many as at Bombay. He dressed very well in various damask silk coats and faultless trousers of Indian cut, his swords and daggers sparkled with jewels, in his hand he flourished a golden-headed cane, and as the water is hard at Sheher, he sends his dirty linen in dhows to Bombay to be washed. He was exceedingly good to us, and as we wanted to go along the coast for about eighty miles, to get a sight of the mouth of the Hadhramout valley near Saihut, where it empties itself into the Indian Ocean, he arranged that the chief of the dreaded Hamoumi tribe should personally escort us, so that there might be no further doubt about our safety.

Sultan Hussein had married a daughter of Sultan Salàh two years before, when she was eleven years old.

The Al Kaiti family have bought up property all round the town, and talked of laying out streets and bringing water to Sheher. We heard that one brother had to have all his share in money, and had twenty-two lacs of rupees, about 150,000_l_.

We became very tired of Sheher before we finally left, having to stay a week, while arrangements were made for our onward way, and on account of Ramadan no communications could be held with anyone, or business be done till sunset. We seemed all day to be the only people alive, and then at night we could hardly sleep for the noise.

Our only pleasures were walks at sunset along the sand, picking up lovely shells and watching the crabs, and we used to sneak out as quietly as we could for fear of being pursued by soldiers. Our little walks were very much shortened when we had an armed escort dogging our steps. Once we got a mile away but were fetched back for fear of the Hamoumi, Sheher being quite on the frontier. There is a round, black basaltic mountain which they call the Hamoumi mountain. The Hamoumi tribe occupy nearly all the mountainous district east of Sheher, between the Hadhramout valley and the sea, and they are reported to be very powerful. Next to them come the tribe of Mahra.

Even Sultan Ghalib himself cannot ride far out of his capital unprotected, because the Hamoumi are his foes.

We tried to get leave to go to Saihut in the Mahri country, but that was impossible, and at last it really was settled that we should go to Bir Borhut and Kabr Houd. We were highly delighted, and fear broke out badly again among the servants, who dreaded the very name of those places. They gladly took permission to remain behind. All arrangements about _siyara_ were made, and we were never to stop more than one night anywhere, and to return by a different way, and the day of departure was settled; but the day before that fixed, it became apparent that we Christians could by no means be permitted to go near Kabr Houd, and that the time occupied for the journey would now be thirty-one days, and we must wait till after Ramadan. It was to be a mere journey without our seeing anything that we wanted to see, and it was getting very late and hot, and we did not feel we could spend so long a time for so little; therefore we gave up all idea of seeing Bir Borhut and Kabr Houd that year. It was to have cost us 670 dollars, at seven to the pound sterling.

By the way, Maria Theresa dollars are always spoken of as _reals_. You have to buy them dear, two rupees and a varying amount of annas, and are told they are very hard to get. They are tied up in bags, and you may very well trust the banker for the number of coins; but if you are wise you will examine them all, for any dirty ones, or any that are the least worn or obliterated, or that have any cut or mark on them, will be rejected and considered bad in the interior. When you return to civilisation you hasten to the banker to change these dollars, and you sell them cheap, for you are told that there is now little demand for dollars, they are quite going out of use and rupees only are used--quite a fable. No matter how many extra annas you may have paid, the dollar only passes for two rupees in the interior. We lost 1,100 rupees on this one journey between our departure from Aden and our return to Aden.

We next settled to go to Mosaina along the coast, and still to start on the appointed day. Therefore we were up betimes (what little baggage we were to take being bound in bundles the day before), packed our beds, and then we waited; it was not certain till four o'clock that no camels were coming. No one could do anything, as the sultan had no power beyond his own dominions, and the camel-men were all foreigners.

However, next morning seven camels came and we were quickly on the road, causing great terror to the crabs. When I say the road I mean the sand at low tide.

We had the chief of all the Hamoumi with us, a very old, rich, and dirty man, but most precious to us as a safeguard. Two of his sons were kept as hostages in Sheher till we should return in peace.

We also had the governor of Kosseir with us, as well as men of the various little tribes whose country we were to traverse, as _siyara_. The camels and _siyara_ cost twelve dollars. The camels were hired by the job, twelve days, so it would not pay them to dawdle.

We had told the sultans how Saleh had behaved and asked them to keep him under their eyes till our return, and this is how we managed without him as interpreter. We talked English to Imam Sharif, he talked Hindustani to his Afghan servant Majid, Majid talked his own tongue to an Afghan whom we annexed at Sheher, and he could speak Arabic. We got on very well, but as such a party had to be assembled to say important things, we had to struggle to express simple things ourselves.