Chapter 28

After the Syrian Hadj had departed, and the greater part of the other pilgrims retired to Djidda, waiting for an opportunity to embark, Mekka appeared like a deserted town. Of its brilliant shops, one-fourth only remained; and in the streets, where a few weeks before it was necessary to force one’s way through the crowd, not a single hadjy was seen, except solitary beggars, who raised their plaintive voices towards the windows of the houses which they supposed to be still inhabited. Rubbish and filth covered all the streets, and nobody appeared disposed to remove it. The skirts of the town were crowded with the dead carcases of camels, the smell from which rendered the air, even in the midst of the town, offensive, and certainly contributed to the many diseases now prevalent. Several hundreds of these carcases lay near the reservoirs of the Hadj, and the Arabs inhabiting that part of Mekka never walked out without stuffing into their nostrils small pieces of cotton, which they carried suspended by a thread round the neck. [The Arabs in general, even the Bedouins, are much more sensitive than the Europeans concerning the slightest offensive smell. This is one of the principal reasons why the Bedouins never enter a town without repugnance. They entertain a belief that bad smells affect the health by entering through the nostrils into the lungs; and it is for this reason, more than for the disagreeable sensation itself arising from the smell, that Arabs and Bedouins are often seen covering their noses with the skirts of their turbans, in walking through the streets.] But this was not all. At this time the Mekkans are in the habit of emptying the privies of their houses; and, too lazy to carry the contents beyond the precincts of the town, they merely dig a hole in the street, before the door of the dwelling, and there deposit them, covering the spot only with a layer of earth. The consequences of such a practice may easily be imagined.

The feasts of nuptials and circumcision now take place, being always celebrated immediately after the Hadj, as soon as the Mekkans are left to themselves, and before the people have had time to spend the sums gained during the residence of the pilgrims; but I saw many

[p.290] more funerals than nuptial processions. Numbers of hadjys, already ill from the fatigues of the road, or from cold caught while wearing the ihram, are unable to proceed on their journey homewards; they remain in the hope of recovering strength, but often terminate their existence here. If they have some companion or relative with them, he carries off the dead man’s property, on paying a fee to the Kadhy; if he is alone, the Kadhy and Sherif are his heirs, and these inheritances are no inconsiderable source of income. When I quitted Mekka, there were still remaining there perhaps a thousand hadjys, many of whom intended to pass a whole year in the holy city, and to be present at another Hadj; others to protract their residence only for a few months.

On the day of quitting Mekka, it is thought becoming to pay a parting visit to the Kaaba, called Towaf el Wodaa, and to perform the Towaf and Say. The hadjys generally do it when every thing is ready for departure, and mount their camels the moment they have finished the ceremony.

[p.291]JOURNEY FROM MEKKA TO MEDINA.

ON the 15th of January, 1815, I left Mekka with a small caravan of hadjys, who were going to visit the tomb of the prophet: it consisted of about fifty camels, the property of some Bedouins of the Ryshye and Zebeyde tribes, who either accompanied their beasts themselves, or had sent slaves with them. I had hired two camels, to carry myself and my slave and baggage; and, as is customary in the Hedjaz, I had paid the money in advance, at the rate of one hundred and eighty piastres per camel. My late cicerone, with whom I had every reason to be satisfied, though not quite free from those professional vices already mentioned, accompanied me out of town, as far as the plain of Sheikh Mahmoud, where the camels had assembled, and from whence the caravan started at nine o’clock in the evening. The journey to Medina, like that between Mekka and Djidda, is performed by night, which renders it much less profitable to the traveller, and, in winter time, much less comfortable than it would be by day.

Having proceeded an hour and a quarter, [I had bought a watch at Mekka, and had obtained a good compass from the English ship at Djidda.] we passed the Omra thus far the road is paved in several parts with large stones, particularly on the ascents. We passed through valleys of firm sand, between irregular chains of low hills, where some shrubs and stunted acacia-trees grow. The road, with few exceptions, was perfectly level.

[p.292]At five hours from Mekka, we passed a ruined building called El Meymounye, with the tomb of a saint, the dome of which was demolished by the Wahabys. Near it is a well of sweet water, and a small birket, or reservoir, built of stone: a little building annexed to the tomb serves as a sort of khan for travellers. For the first six hours from Mekka our road lay N.W., when we turned a steep hill, which caravans cannot cross, and proceeded N.N.W. to Wady Fatme, which we reached at the end of eight hours from Mekka, just at the first appearance of dawn.

January 16th. We alighted on the spot where the pilgrim caravans repose on the day before they reach Mekka, in a part of the valley of Fatme, called Wady Djemmoum. Wady Fatme is low ground, abounding in springs and wells; it extends in an E.N.E. direction to the distance of four or five hours, until it nearly joins Wady Lymoun. To the west of our resting- place, it terminates at about an hour and a half’s distance, being about six hours in its whole length. The most western point is called Medoua. On the western side are the principal plantations; to the east it is cultivated in a few spots only. It presented to the view on that side a plain of several miles in breadth, covered with shrubs, and flanked on both sides by low barren hills or elevated ground; but towards its eastern extremity it is said to be very well cultivated. Wady Fatme has different appellations in different parts; but the whole is commonly known to the people of Djidda and Mekka by the name of El Wady, or the valley. By the Arabian historians it is usually called Wady Merr. Between Wady Fatme and Hadda, (the station so named on the Djidda road,) are the two places, called Serouat and Rekany. (See Asamy.)

The cultivated grounds in Wady Fatme contain principally date-trees, which supply the markets of the two neighbouring towns; and vegetables, which are carried every night, on small droves of asses, to Mekka and Djidda. Wheat and barley are also cultivated in small quantities. The Wady being well supplied with water, might easily be rendered more productive than it now is; but the Hedjaz people are generally averse to all manual labour. Near the place where we alighted, runs a small rivulet, coming from the eastward, about three

[p.293] feet broad, and two feet deep, and flowing in a subterranean channel cased with stone, which is uncovered for a short space where the caravans take their supply of water, which is much more tepid than that of the Zemzem at Mekka, and is much better tasted. Close by are several ruined Saracen buildings and a large khan; and here also, according to Fasy, stood formerly a Mesdjed called El Fath. Among the date-groves are some Arab huts belonging to the cultivators of the soil, chiefly of the Lahyan tribe; the more wealthy of them belong to the tribe of the Sherifs of Mekka, called Dwy Barakat, who live here like Bedouins, in tents and huts. They have a few cattle; their cows, like all those of the Hedjaz, are small, and have a hump on their shoulders. Wady Fatme is also distinguished for its numerous henna-trees, with the odoriferous flowers of which, reduced to powder, the people of the East dye the palms of the hands, the soles of the feet, or the nails of both. The henna of this valley is sold at Mekka to the hadjys in small red leathern bags; and many of them carry some of it home, as a present to their female relations. I think it probable that the Oaditæ of Ptolemy were the inhabitants of this valley, (Wady, Oadi).

We found at our halting-place a party of about twenty servants and camel-drivers belonging to the Turkish army at Mekka, who had left that place secretly to escape the embargo laid by Mohammed Aly upon all persons of their description. They were without any provisions, and had very little money; but hearing that there was a caravan to start for Medina, they thought they should be able to accompany it thither. Some of them, who were Egyptians, intended to go to Yembo; others, who were Syrians, had formed the plan of returning home through the Desert by the Hedjaz route, and of begging their way along the Bedouin encampments, not having money enough to pay for their passage by sea to Suez.

We left our resting-place at three o’clock P.M., and were one hour in crossing the Wady to its northern side; from whence the Hadj road, on which we travelled, rises gently between hills, through valleys full of acacia-trees, in a direction N. 40 W. The rock is all granite of the

[p.294] gray and red species. At the end of two hours, the country opens, the trees diminish, and the course changes to N. 55 W. Towards sun-set I had walked a little way in front of the caravan, and being tired, sat down under a tree to wait its approach; when five Bedouins crept along the bushes towards me, and suddenly snatched up my stick, the only weapon which was lying on the ground behind me. Their leader said that I was, no doubt, a deserter from the Turkish army, and therefore their lawful prize. I offered no resistance; but seeing them much less determined than Bedouin robbers generally are, I concluded that they were not free from fear. I told them, therefore, that I was a hadjy, and belonged to a large caravan escorted by Harb Bedouins; that they might wait a little before they stopped me, to assure themselves of this fact by the arrival of the caravan; and that they had better not offer me any violence, as our guides would no doubt know the perpetrators, and would report it to those who had the power to punish them. I felt assured that they had no intention of doing me any bodily harm, and was under no apprehension, especially as I had only a travelling dress and a few dollars to lose, should the worst happen. One of them, an old man, advised his comrades to wait a little; for that it would not be well to incur the consequences of robbing a hadjy. During our parley, I looked impatiently for the caravan coming in sight; but it had stopped behind for a quarter of an hour, to allow the travellers time to perform the evening prayers, a daily practice among them, of which. I was yet ignorant. This delay was very much against me, and I expected every moment to be stripped, when, the tread of the camels being at last heard, the Bedouins retreated as suddenly as they had approached.

Although the road from Mekka to Medina was considered safe even for caravans unarmed like ours, yet stragglers are always exposed; and had it not been for the terror with which, a few days before, Mohammed Aly’s victory over the Wahabys had inspired all the neighbouring Bedouins, I should probably have been punished for my imprudence in walking on alone. We rode the greater part of the night, over a plain more gravelly than sandy, where some ashour trees

[p.295] grow among the acacias, the same species (Asclepia gigantea) which I have so often mentioned in my Nubian Travels. This ground is called El Barka. After a seven hours’ march, we stopped at El Kara.

January 17th. We slept a few hours during the night, a circumstance that seldom occurred on this journey. El Kara is a black, flinty plain, with low hills at a great distance to the east: it bears a few thorny trees, but affords no water. I was struck by its great resemblance to the Nubian Desert, south of Shigre. Although in the midst of winter, the heat was intense the whole morning of our stay at Kara. Nobody in the caravan had a tent, and I was more exposed than any person; all the others being mounted on a shebrye, or shekdof, a sort of covered camel- saddle, which affords some shelter from the sun, both while on the camel, and when placed on the ground: the shebrye serves for one person, and the shekdof for two-one sitting on each side of the camel. But I had always preferred the open seat upon a loaded camel, as more commodious, besides being more Arablike, and affording the advantage of mounting or dismounting without the aid of the driver, and without stopping the animal; which it is very difficult to effect with those machines on their back, especially the shekdof, where both riders must keep continually balancing each other.

I formed to-day a closer acquaintance with my fellow-travellers; for, in small caravans, every one endeavours to be upon friendly terms with his companions. They were Malays, or, as they are called in the Levant, Jawas; and, with the exception of a few of them, who came from the coast of Malacca, all British subjects, natives of Sumatra, Java, and the coast of Malabar. The Malays come regularly to the Hadj, and often bring their women with them, three of whom were in our caravan. Many remain for years at Mekka, to study the Koran and the law, and are known among the Indians in the Hedjaz as scrupulous adherents to the precepts, or at least to the rites, of their religion. Few of them talk Arabic fluently; but they all read the Koran, and, even when travelling, are engaged in studying it. They defray the expenses of their journey by selling aloe- wood, the best kind of which, called Ma Wardy, they told me, cost, in their country,

[p.296] between three and four dollars per pound, and sells at Mekka at between twenty and twenty-five dollars. Their broad, long features, and prominent forehead, their short but stout stature, and their decayed teeth, which present a striking contrast to the pearly teeth of the Arabs, every where distinguish them, although they wear the common Indian dress. Their women, who all went unveiled, wore robes and handkerchiefs of striped silk stuff, of Chinese manufacture. They appeared to be people of very sober habits and quiet demeanour, but avaricious in the extreme; and their want of charity was sufficiently proved by their treatment of the destitute fugitives who had joined the caravan at Wady Fatme. They lived, during the whole journey, upon rice and salted fish: they boiled the rice in water, without any butter, a dear article in the Hedjaz, but which they did not dislike; for several of them begged my slave to give them secretly some of mine, for seasoning their dish. As they were people of property, avarice alone could be the motive for this abstemious diet; but they were sufficiently punished by the curses of the Bedouins, who had, of course, expected to partake of their dinners, and could not be prevailed upon to swallow the watery rice. Their copper vessels were all of Chinese manufacture, and instead of the abrik, or pot, which the Levantines use in washing and making their ablutions, they carried with them Chinese tea-pots.

During this journey, I had frequent opportunities of learning the opinion entertained by these Malays of the government and manners of the English, their present masters; they discovered a determined rancour and hostile spirit towards them, and greatly reviled their manners, of which, however, the worst they knew was, that they indulged too freely in wine, and that the sexes mixed together in social intercourse; none, however, impeached the justice of the government, which they contrasted with the oppression of their native princes; and although they bestowed upon the British the same opprobrious epithets with which the fanatic Moslims every where revile Europeans, they never failed to add, “but their government is good.” I have overheard many similar conversations among the Indians at Djidda and Mekka, and also among the Arabian sailors who

[p.297] trade to Bombay and Surat; the spirit of all which was, that the Moslims of India hate the English, though they love their government.

We left our resting-place at ten o’clock P.M., and proceeded over the plain of Kara, in a direction N. 40 W. At the end of three hours we passed a ruined building called Sebyl el Kara, where a well, now filled up, formerly supplied the passengers with water. I saw no hills to the west, as far as my eyes could reach. The plain is here overgrown with some trees and thick shrubs. We continued to cross it till six hours, where it closes; and the road begins to ascend slightly through a broad woody valley: here is situated Bir Asfán, a large, deep well, lined with stone, with a spring of good water in the bottom. This is a station of the Hadj. There is another way from Wady Fatme to Asfan, four miles to the eastward of our route. We passed the well without stopping. Samhoudy, the historian of Medina, mentions a village at Asfan, with a spring called Owla; there is now no village here. At seven hours begins a very narrow ascending passage between rocks, affording room for only one camel. The torrents which rush down through this passage in winter have entirely destroyed the road, and filled it with large, sharp blocks of stone; the Hadj route seemed, in several places, to be cut out of the rock, but the night was too dark for seeing any thing distinctly. At the end of eight hours we reached the top of this defile, where a small building stands, perhaps the tomb of a Sheikh. From hence we rode over a wide plain, sometimes sandy, and in other parts a mixture of sand and clay, where trees and shrubs grow. At fourteen hours, near the break of dawn, we passed a small Bedouin encampment, and alighted, at the end of fifteen hours, in the neighbourhood of a village called Kholeys. We had made several short halts during the night, and kindled fires to warm ourselves.

Kholeys stands upon a wide plain, in several parts of which date-groves are seen, with fields, where dhourra, bemye, and dokken are cultivated. Several hamlets appear scattered about, which are comprised in the general name of Kholeys; the largest is called Es-Souk, or the market- place, near which the Hadj encamps. A small rivulet, tepid, like that in Wady Fatme, rises near the Souk, and is collected

[p.298] on the outside of the village in a small birket, now ruined, and then waters the plain. Near the birket there are also the ruins of a sebyl. [A sebyl is a small, open building, often found by the side of fountains; in these sebyls travellers pray, and take their repose.] According to Kotobeddyn, the birket and sebyl were built by Kayd Beg, Sultan of Egypt, about A.H. 885. At that time, Kholeys had its own Emir, who was a very powerful person in the Hedjaz. I saw plenty of cattle, cows, and sheep; but the Arabs complained that their plantations suffered from drought, no rain having yet fallen, though the season was far advanced. The water from the rivulet did not appear sufficient to irrigate all the cultivated grounds, and the supply was even less than it might have been, as half of the water was suffered, through negligence, to escape from the narrow channels.

The village Es-Souk contains about fifty houses, all built of mud, and very low: its main street is lined with shops, kept by the people of Kholeys, and frequented by all the neighbouring Bedouins. The principal article for sale was dates, with which most of the shops were filled; in the others were sold dhourra, barley, lentils and onions, (both from Egypt,) rice, and some other articles of provision; but no wheat, that grain being little used by the Bedouins of this country: there were also spices, a few drugs, the bark of a tree for tanning the water-skins, and some butter. Milk was not to be found, for no one likes to be called a milk-seller. A tolerably well-built mosque stands by the rivulet, near some gigantic sycamore trees. I found in it two negro hadjys from Darfour; they had, the night before, been stripped on the road of a few piastres, earned at Mekka: one of them having attempted to defend himself, had been severely beaten; and they now intended to go back to Djidda, and endeavour to retrieve their loss by a few months’ labour. One of the Bedouins who had stripped them, was smoking his pipe in the village; but they had not the means of proving the robbery against him, nor of obtaining justice. Kholeys is the chief seat of the Arab tribe of Zebeyd, a branch of Beni Harb, and the residence of their Sheikh. The greater part of them are Bedouins; and many even of those who cultivate the ground, pass some part of the

[p.299] year under tents in the Desert, for the purpose of pasturing their cattle upon the wild herbage. A few families of Beni Amer, (or Aamer, [The Beni Aamer must not be confounded with Amer, another tribe of Harb.]) another branch of Harb, are mixed with this tribe at Kholeys.

Before the Turkish conquest, the usual currency at this market was dhourra; at present, piastres and paras are taken. Kholeys often sends small caravans to Djidda, which is two long days’ journeys, or three caravan journeys distant. I was told that the neighbouring mountains were well peopled with Bedouins. About three hours distant, in a N.E. direction, is a fertile valley called Wady Khowar, known for its numerous plantations of bananas, by which the fruit-markets of Mekka and Djidda are supplied.

January 18th. Having filled our water-skins, we set out at three o’clock, P.M. Our road lay N. 20 E. over the plain. In two hours we came to a high hill, called Thenyet Kholeys, the steep side of which was deeply covered with sand, through which our camels ascended with difficulty. Some ancient ruins of a large building stand on its top, and the road on both sides of the hill is lined with walls, to prevent too great an accumulation of the sand. It was covered with carcases of camels, the relics of the late Hadj caravans. On descending the other side, a plain extended before us to the north and east, as far as the eye could reach. To the E.N.E. high mountains were visible, distant between twenty and thirty miles. Descending into the plain, we took the direction N. 10 W. At three hours and a half the plain, which thus far had been firm gravel, changed into deep sand, with tarfa (or tamarisk) trees, which delight particularly in sand, and in the driest season, when all vegetation around them is withered, never lose their verdure. It is one of the most common productions of the Arabian Desert, from the Euphrates to Mekka, and is also frequent in the Nubian deserts: its young leaves form an excellent food for camels. At four hours and a quarter, we found the road covered with a saline crust, indicating the neighbourhood of the sea; from hence, our course was in various directions.

According to the usual practice in the Hedjaz, the camels walk in

[p.300] a single row--those behind tied to the tails of those that precede them. The Arab, riding foremost, was to lead the troop; but he frequently fell asleep, as well as his companions behind; and his camel then took its own course, and often led the whole caravan astray. After a twelve hours’ march, we alighted at the Hadj station called Kolleya, and also Kobeyba. Every spot in the plains of Arabia is known by a particular name; and it requires the eye and experience of a Bedouin to distinguish one small district from another: for this purpose, the different species of shrubs and pasturage produced in them by the rains, are of great assistance; and whenever they wish to mention a certain spot to their companions, which happens to have no name, they always designate it by the herbs that grow there; as, for instance, Abou Shyh, Abou Agál, &c.