Chapter 35

EXPERIENCES WITH THE YAFEI SULTAN

In the same year, 1897, soon after our return thither from Sokotra, we left Aden to explore the Yafei and Fadhli countries. Our preparations for this expedition were made under quite different and much happier circumstances from those which attended our last journey from Aden to the interior of Arabia, _i.e._ the Hadhramout. We received every help that could be given us by General Cuningham, Colonel Hayes-Sadler, Captain Wadeson, and, indeed, everyone from whom we asked assistance was most kind. We took with us only our servant Matthaios, the Greek, Musaben, an elderly man from the Aden troup, as jemadar or manager of the soldiers and go-between generally; and three or four soldiers. No interpreter was necessary, I am glad to say, this time.

We left Sheikh Othman on February 28, 1897, for our nine hours' ride to Bir Mighar, sorry to have to make so long a journey the first day. At first we went past pretty gardens and villas, but soon left these traces of civilisation behind us, and the way went through desert, sometimes salty, sometimes sandy, sometimes bare, and sometimes with low bushes, now straight, and at others wending among sand-hills with cliffs to leeward, and ribbed and rippled like water. In some parts every trace of path is smothered by sand, and quicksand also must be warily avoided. We passed the ruins of an old town near Sheikh Othman, and five miles on, Imad, a wretched-looking collection of brushwood huts around a dar, or tower, still in English land.

This place is, about Christmas time, the scene of a fair to which all the neighbouring tribes gather, so a good study can be made of the native tongues.

A few patches of ground had the sand scraped off into banks, and were awaiting rain to sow some crops for fodder, but looked as if they had been waiting a long time. This caravan road across the Abyan is very old; its monotony is inexpressible, for the nine hours to Bir Mighar. At the sixth hour the road to Hawash goes off to the left. As we approached the well of Mighar the signs of population increased, and a few scrubby acacias grow near. There are two wells a mile apart; the farther, where we encamped, was once protected by a fort, now in ruins. A few years ago a hundred Yafei surprised the Fadhli, and sacked the fort, which has not since been repaired. Many parties of travellers were gathering round this well for the night; one husband and wife who took alternate charge of a baby slung in a straw cradle and a goat; another pair with their household goods, baby, and many fowls on a camel, while they were each laden with more fowls.

We passed a cold night, and were very tired; our things, having been packed on board the baggalla in which we came from Sokotra, were not in marching order. We only made a short journey of six miles next day past Al Khabt, which was just the same sort of place as Imad. We had to take a most circuitous route to reach it, and it was hard to realise that all the banks we wound amongst were fields waiting for rain. Hagheri Ask, our next halt, was even a yet more wretched hamlet--about six reed huts, and about as many goats and jackal-like dogs.

Our tents were most unsteadily pitched on sand. There is a good well, and there has been a village here 'from the first,' as the Arabs say. There are many traces of antiquity; and numerous pieces of glass, good pottery, and bangles lie about. There are three ruined tombs and some smaller ones of mud bricks, and they make mud bricks there still. The villages of the Abyan are most poverty-stricken places.

The first day we had our camels loaded with jowari, and at Bir Mighar we took up fuel. From Hagheri Ask to Kanfar is about six miles, and we spent two hours over it. Trees became more numerous, good large ones, chiefly arrack and acacia, and a few small fan-palms. There were quantities of birds' nests, in every way a contrast to ours; for, instead of warm woolly ones, safe from wind and rain in the innermost recesses of our soft-leaved, easily climbed trees, these were loose open-work airy little baskets, dancing on the outer tips of the thorny branches. The scenery in the desert part was much improved by mirages of beautiful blue lakes and streams, nearly under our feet. Once, on the journey, we thought the piping times of peace had come to an abrupt end. The army of three became a vanguard, one who was riding having very suddenly turned himself into infantry, the guns were taken out of their calico bags and cocked, but the supposed enemy turned out to be only six or eight men carrying great rolls of skins and huge dry gourds for sale, so the rifles were packed up again. Some had Martini-Henrys and one or two of the camel-men had matchlocks.

Since leaving the British Empire we had been in the Fadhli country till we reached the Wadi Banna, or Benna, the boundary between the Beled Fadhli and Beled Yafei, then winding indeed was our way, for we were in thick wood; swords and daggers had to be used to cut a path, and we were brought to a standstill more than once, with our heads bent under trees, not daring to lift them. It would be easy for the inhabitants to stop an enemy's attack here. The smell of the arrack is not at all pleasant. Two Fadhli were once directed into the Banna bed by the Yafei of Al Husn, and when they were in the wood they set fire to it and burnt them. The inhabitants do not venture off the path. There are quicksands in some parts of the wadi.

We encamped not far from the town of Kanfar, amongst some large arrack bushes on the sand, and surrounded by mounds scattered over with bits of glass. There has been a succession of towns here, and the present one is situated on large mounds near some somewhat ruinous forts. It would take an immense quantity of digging to come on Himyaritic remains. Many gold coins are found, and set on the jembias; our old Musàben had two on his dagger, about four hundred years old. We were told that Boubakr-bin-Saïd, sultan of the lower Yafei, was to come in two days to keep the feast of a saint, Wali Abdullah-bin-Amr, who is buried here. In the meantime we surveyed our surroundings while awaiting his coming. The ground under the arrack bushes is perforated through and through by rats with bushy tips to their tails, as far as the utmost branch extends. Sometimes we felt our feet sinking, and discovered we were walking over the site of a vanished bush. There is an old ruined castle, with pretty herring-bone patterns and open-work windows. The principal well, a little distance from the town, is very close by the present fortress, where the sultan lives. There is a gunpowder factory of a primitive kind, for there is plenty of saltpetre to be found close by. We went all about the village quite comfortably with a couple of Yafei guards, and the people were