Part 5

The sermon lasted about three hours, and when sunset was near, the preacher gave the israf, or permission to depart. Then began that risky part of the ceremony known as the “hurrying from Arafat.” The pilgrims all rushed down the Mount of Mercy with cries like trumpet blasts, and took the road to Muna. Every man urged his beast to the uttermost over the plain, which bristled with pegs, and was strewn with struck tents. Pedestrians were trampled, litters were crushed, and camels were thrown; here a woman, there a child, was lost, whilst night coming on without twilight added to the chaotic confusion of the scene. The pass of the Two Rugged Hills, where all the currents converged, was the crisis, after which progress was easier. We spent, however, at least three hours in reaching Mugdalifah, and there we resolved to sleep. The minaret was brilliantly illuminated, but my companions apparently thought more of rest and supper than of prayer. The night was by no means peaceful nor silent. Lines of laden beasts passed us every ten minutes, devotees guarding their boxes from plunderers gave loud tokens of being wide awake, and the shouting of travellers continued till near dawn.

The 10th of Zu’l Hijjah, the day following the sermon, is called Yaum Vahr (the Day of Camel Killing), or EEd El Kurban (the Festival of the Sacrifice), the Kurban Bairam of the Turks. It is the most solemn of the year, and it holds amongst Moslems the rank which Easter Day claims from Christendom.

We awoke at daybreak, and exchanged with all around us the compliments of the season――“EEd Kum mubarak”――“May your festival be auspicious.” Then each man gathered for himself seven jamrah (bits of granite the size of a small bean), washed them in “seven waters,” and then proceeded to the western end of the long street which forms the village of Muna. Here is the place called the Great Devil, to distinguish it from two others, the Middle Devil and the First Devil, or the easternmost. The outward and visible signs are nothing but short buttresses of whitewashed masonry placed against a rough wall in the main thoroughfare. Some derive the rite from the days of Adam, who put to flight the Evil One by pelting him, as Martin Luther did with the inkstand. Others opine that the ceremony is performed in imitation of Abraham, who, meeting Sathanas at Muna, and being tempted to disobedience in the matter of sacrificing his son, was commanded by Allah to drive him away with stones. Pilgrims approach if possible within five paces of the pillar, and throw at it successfully seven pebbles, holding each one between the thumb and forefinger of the right hand, either extended, or shooting it as a boy does a marble. At every cast they exclaim: “In the name of Allah, and Allah is almighty! In hatred to the Fiend and to his shame I do this!” It is one of the local miracles that all the pebbles thus flung return by spiritual agency whence they came.

As Satan was malicious enough to appear in a rugged lane hardly forty feet broad, the place was rendered dangerous by the crowd. On one side stood the devil’s buttress and wall, bristling with wild men and boys. Opposite it was a row of temporary booths tenanted by barbers, and the space between swarmed with pilgrims, all trying to get at the enemy of mankind. A monkey might have run over the heads of the mob. Amongst them were horsemen flogging their steeds, Bedouins urging frightened camels, and running footmen opening paths for the grandees, their masters, by assault and battery. We congratulated each other, the boy Mohammed and I, when we escaped with trifling hurts. Some Moslem travellers assert, by way of miracle, that no man was ever killed during the ceremony of rajm, or lapidation. Several Meccans, however, assured me that fatal accidents are by no means rare.

After throwing the seven pebbles, we doffed our pilgrim garb, and returned to ihlal, or normal attire.

The barber placed us upon an earthen bench in the open shop, shaved our heads, trimmed our beards, and pared our nails, causing us to repeat after him: “I purpose throwing off my ceremonial attire, according to the practice of the Prophet――whom may Allah bless and preserve! O Allah, grant to me for every hair a light, a purity, and a generous reward! In the name of Allah, and Allah is almighty!” The barber then addressed me: “Naiman”――“Pleasure to thee!”――and I responded: “Allah, give _thee_ pleasure!” Now we could at once use cloths to cover our heads, and slippers to defend our feet from fiery sun and hot soil, and we might safely twirl our mustachios and stroke our beards――placid enjoyments of which we had been deprived by the ceremonial law.

The day ended with the sacrifice of an animal to commemorate the substitution of a ram for Ishmael, the father of the Arabs. The place of the original offering is in the Muna Valley, and it is still visited by pilgrims. None but the Kruma, the Pacha, and high dignitaries slaughter camels. These beasts are killed by thrusting a knife into the interval between the throat and the breast, the muscles of the wind-pipe being too hard and thick to cut; their flesh is lawful to the Arabs, but not to the Hebrews. Oxen, sheep, and goats are made to face the Kaabah, and their throats are cut, the sacrificer ejaculating: “In the name of Allah! Allah is almighty!” It is meritorious to give away the victim without eating any part of it, and thus crowds of poor pilgrims were enabled to regale themselves.

There is a terrible want of cleanliness in this sacrifice. Thousands of animals are cut up and left unburied in this “Devil’s Punchbowl.” I leave the rest to the imagination. Pilgrims usually pass in the Muna Valley the Days of Flesh Drying――namely, the 11th, the 12th, and the 13th of the month Zu’l Hijjah――and on the two former the Great, the Middle, and the Little Satan are again pelted. The standing miracles of the place are that beasts and birds cannot prey there, nor can flies settle upon provisions exposed in the markets. But animals are frightened away by the bustling crowds, and flies are found in myriads. The revolting scene, aided by a steady temperature of 120° Fahr., has more than once caused a desolating pestilence at Meccah: the cholera of 1865 has been traced back to it; in fine, the safety of Europe demands the reformation of this filthy slaughter-house, which is still the same.

The pilgrimage rites over, we returned to Meccah for a short sojourn. Visitors are advised, and wisely, not to linger long in the Holy City after the conclusion of the ceremonies. Use soon spoils the marvels, and, after the greater excitements, all becomes flat, stale, and unprofitable. The rite called umrah, or the “little pilgrimage,” and the running between Mounts Safa and Marwah, in imitation of Hagar seeking her child, remain to be performed. And there are many spots of minor sanctity to be visited, such as the Jannal El Maala, or Cemetery of the Saints, the mosque where the genii paid fealty to the Prophet, the house where Mohammed was born, that in which he lived with his first wife, Khadijah, and in which his daughter Fatimah and his grandsons Hasan and Hussayn saw the light, the place where the stone gave the founder of El Islam God-speed, and about a dozen others. Men, however, either neglect them or visit them cursorily, and think of little now beyond returning home.

I must briefly sketch the Holy City before we bid it adieu.

Meccah, also called Beccah, the words being synonymous, signifies according to some a “place of great concourse,” is built between 21° and 22° of N. Lat. and in 39° E. Long. (Greenwich).[5] It is therefore more decidedly tropical than El Medinah, and the parallel corresponds with that of Cuba. The origin of the Bayt Ullah is lost in the glooms of time, but Meccah as it now stands is a comparatively modern place, built in A.D. 450 by Kusayr the Kuraysh. It is a city colligated together like Jerusalem and Rome. The site is a winding valley in the midst of many little hills; the effect is that it offers no general _coup d’œil_. Thus the views of Meccah known to Europe are not more like Meccah than like Cairo or Bombay.

The utmost length of the Holy City is two miles and a half from the Mab’dah, or northern suburb, to the southern mound called Jiyad. The extreme breadth may be three-quarters between the Abu Kubays hill on the east and the Kaykaan, or Kuwaykaan, eminence on the west. The mass of houses clusters at the western base of Abu Kubays. The mounts called Safa and Marwah extend from Abu Kubays to Kayhaan, and are about seven hundred and eighty cubits apart. The great temple is near the centre of the city, as the Kaabah is near the middle of the temple. Upon Jebel Jiyad the Greater there is a fort held by Turkish soldiery; it seems to have no great strength. In olden time Meccah had walls and gates; now there are none.

The ground in and about the Holy City is sandy and barren, the hills are rocky and desert. Meat, fruits, and vegetables must be imported _viâ_ Jeddah, the port, distant about forty-five miles. The climate is exceedingly hot and rarely tempered by the sea breeze. I never suffered so much from temperature as during my fortnight at Meccah.

The capital of the Hejaz, which is about double the size of El Medinah, has all the conveniences of a city. The streets are narrow, deep, and well watered. The houses are durable and well built of brick mixed with granite and sandstone, quarried in the neighbouring hills. Some of them are five stories high, and more like fortresses than dwelling-places. The lime, however, is bad, and after heavy rain, sometimes ten days in the year, those of inferior structure fall in ruins. None but the best have open-work of brick and courses of coloured stone. The roofs are made flat to serve for sleeping-places, the interiors are sombre to keep out the heat; they have jutting upper stories, as in the old town of Brazil, and huge latticed hanging balconies――the maswrabujah of Cairo, here called the shamiyah――project picturesquely into the streets and the small squares in which the city abounds.

The population is guessed at forty-five thousand souls. The citizens appeared to me more civilised and more vicious than those of El Medinah, and their habit of travel makes them a worldly-wise and God-forgetting and Mammonist sort of folk. “Circumambulate and run between Mounts Safa and Marwah and do the seven deadly sins,” is a satire popularly levelled against them. Their redeeming qualities are courage, _bonhomie_, manners at once manly and suave, a fiery sense of honour, strong family affections, and a near approach to what we call patriotism. The dark half of the picture is pride, bigotry, irreligion, greed of gain, debauchery, and prodigal ostentation.

Unlike his brother of El Medinah, the Meccan is a swarthy man. He is recognised throughout the east by three parallel gashes down each cheek, from the exterior angles of the eyes to the corners of the mouth. These mashali, as they call them, are clean contrary to the commands of El Islam. The people excuse the practice by saying that it preserves their children from being kidnapped, and it is performed the fortieth day after birth.

The last pilgrimage ceremony performed at Meccah is the Tawaf el Widaaf, or circumambulation of farewell, a solemn occasion. The devotee walks round the House of Allah, he drinks the water of the Zemzem well, he kisses the threshold of the door, and he stands for some time with his face and bosom pressed against the multazem wall, clinging to the curtain, reciting religious formulas, blessing the Prophet, weeping if possible, but at least groaning. He then leaves the temple, backing out of it with many salutations till he reaches the Gate of Farewell, when, with a parting glance at the Kaabah, he turns his face towards home.

I will not dwell upon my return journey――how, accompanied by the boy Mohammed, I reached Jeddah on the Red Sea, how my countrymen refused for a time to believe me, and how I sadly parted with my Moslem friends. My wanderings ended for a time, and, worn out with fatigue and with the fatal fiery heat, I steamed out of Jeddah on September 26th in the little _Dwarka_, and on October 3rd, 1853, after six months’ absence from England, I found myself safely anchored in Suez Harbour.

[5] Both latitude and longitude are disputed points, as the following table shows. The Arabs, it must be remembered, placed the first meridian at the Fortunate Islands:

The Atwal makes the latitude 21° 40′, longitude 67° 13′ Kanun ” ” 21° 20′ ” 67° 0′ Ibu Said ” ” 21° 31′ ” 67° 31′ Rasm ” ” 21° 0′ ” 67° 0′ Khúshyar ” ” 21° 40′ ” 67° 10′ Masr el Din ” ” 21° 40′ ” 77° 10′ D’Anville ” ” 22° 0′ ” 77° 10′ Niebuhr ” ” 21° 30′ ” 77° 10′

Humbodlt, therefore, is hardly right to say: “L’erreur est que le Mecque paraissait déjà aux Arabes de 19° trop a l’est” (“Correspondence,” p. 459).

_A RIDE TO HARAR_

1854-1855

_A RIDE TO HARAR_

The pilgrimage to Meccah being a thing of the past, and the spirit of unrest still strong within me, I next turned my thoughts to the hot depths of the Dark Continent. Returning to Bombay early in 1854, I volunteered to explore the Land of the Somali, the eastern horn of Africa, extending from Cape Guardafui (N. Lat. 12°) to near the Equator. For many years naval officers had coasted along it; many of our ships had been lost there, and we had carefully shot their wreckers and plunderers. But no modern traveller had ventured into the wild depths, and we were driven for information to the pages of Father Lobo, of Salt, and de Rienzi.

My project aimed at something higher; and indeed it was this journey which led directly to the discovery of the sources of the Nile, so far as they are yet discovered.

I had read in Ptolemy (I., par. 9) the following words: “Then concerning the navigation between the Aromata Promontory (_i.e._, Guardafui) and Rhapta (the ‘place of seven ships,’ generally supposed to be north of Kilwa), Marianus of Tyre declares that a certain Diogenes, one of those sailing to India … when near Aromata and having the Troglodytic region on the right (some of the Somali were still cave-dwellers), reached, after twenty-five days’ march, the lakes (plural and not dual) whence the Nile flows and of which Point Raphta is a little south.”

This remarkable passage was to me a revelation; it was the _mot de l’enigme_, the way to make the egg stand upright, the rending of the veil of Isis. The feat for which Julius Cæsar would have relinquished a civil war, the secret which kings from Nero to Mahommet Ali vainly attempted to solve, the discovery of which travellers, from Herodotus to Bruce, have risked their lives, was reduced to comparative facility. For the last three thousand years explorers had been working, literally and metaphorically, against the stream, where disease and savagery had exhausted health and strength, pocket and patience, at the very beginning of the end. I therefore resolved to reverse the operation, and thus I hoped to see the young Nile and to stultify a certain old proverb.

The Court of Directors of the Honourable East India Company unwillingly sanctioned my project: I was too clever by half, and they suspected that it concealed projects of annexation or conquest. All that my political views aimed at was to secure the supremacy of my country in the Red Sea. Despite Lord Palmerston and Robert Stephenson, I foresaw that the Suez Canal would be a success, and I proposed to purchase for the sum of £10,000 all the ports on the East African shore as far south as Berbera. This was refused; I was sternly reprimanded, and the result will presently appear.

In July of the same year we reached Aden from Bombay. Our little party was composed of Lieutenant Herne and Lieutenant Stroyan, with myself in command. Before setting out I permitted Lieutenant J. H. Speke to join us; he was in search of African sport, and, being a stranger, he was glad to find companions. This officer afterwards accompanied me to Central Africa, and died at Bath on Thursday, September 15th, 1864.

Aden――“eye of Yemen,” the “coal-hole of the East” (as we call it), the “dry and squalid city” of Abulfeda――gave me much trouble. It is one of the worst, if not _the_ worst, places of residence to which Anglo-Indians can be condemned. The town occupies the crater floor of an extinct volcano whose northern wall, a grim rock of bare black basalt known as Jebel Shamsham, is said to be the sepulchre of Kabil, or Cain, and certainly the First Murderer lies in an appropriate spot. Between May and October the climate is dreadful. The storms of unclean dust necessitate candles at noon, and not a drop of rain falls, whilst high in the red hot air you see the clouds rolling towards the highlands of the interior, where their blessed loads will make Arabia happy. In Yemen――Arabia Felix――there are bubbling springs and fruits and vineyards, sweet waters, fertilising suns, and cool nights. In Aden and its neighbourhood all is the abomination of desolation.

The miseries of our unfortunate troops might have been lightened had we originally occupied the true key of the Red Sea, the port of Berbera on the Somali coast opposite Aden. But the step had been taken; the authorities would not say “Peccavi” and undo the past. Therefore we died of fever and dysentery; the smallest wound became a fearful ulcer which destroyed limb or life. Even in health, existence without appetite or sleep was a pest. I had the audacity to publish these facts, and had once more to pay the usual penalty for telling the truth.

The English spirit suffers from confinement behind any but wooden walls, and the Aden garrison displayed a timidity which astonished me. The fierce faces, the screaming voices, and the frequent faction fights of the savage Somali had cowed our countrymen, and they were depressed by a “peace at any price” policy. Even the Brigadier commanding, General (afterwards Sir) James Outram, opposed my explorations, and the leader was represented as a madman leading others to a certain and cruel death.

I at once changed my plans. To prove that the journey presented no real danger, I offered to visit alone what was considered the most perilous part of the country and explore Harar, the capital of the _terra incognita_. But to prevent my being detained meanwhile, I stationed my companions on the African coast with orders to seize and stop the inland caravans――a measure which would have had the effect of releasing me. This is a serious danger in Abyssinian travel: witness the case of Pedro Cavilham in 1499, and the unfortunate Consul Cameron in our own day. Those “nameless Ethiopians,” the older savages, sacrificed strangers to their gods. The modern only keep them in irons, flog them, and starve them.

At the time I went few but professed geographers knew even the name of Harar, or suspected that within three hundred miles of Aden there is a counterpart of ill-famed Timbuctu. Travellers of all nations had attempted it in vain; men of science, missionaries, and geographers had all failed. It was said that some Hamitu prophet had read decline and fall in the first footsteps of the Frank, and that the bigoted barbarians had threatened death to the infidel caught within their walls. Yet it was worth seeing, especially in those days, when few were the unvisited cities of the world. It has a stirring history, a peculiar race and language, it coins its own money, and it exports the finest coffee known. Finally it is the southernmost town in Tropical Africa.

On April 28th, 1854, in an open boat, I left Aden alone, without my companions, re-becoming El Hajj Abdullah, the Arab. My attendants were Mohammed and Guled, two Somali policemen bound to keep my secret for the safety of their own throats. I afterwards engaged one Abdy Abokr, a kind of hedge-priest, whose nickname was the “End of Time,” meaning the _ne plus ultra_ of villainy. He was a caution――a bad tongue, a mischievous brain, covetous and wasteful, treacherous as a hyena, revengeful as a camel, timorous as a jackal.

Three days of summer sail on the “blind billows” and the “singing waves” of the romantic Arab geographers landed us at Zayla, _alias_ Andal, the classical Sinus Avaliticus, to the south-west of Aden. During the seventh century it was the capital of a kingdom which measured forty-three by forty days’ march; now the Bedouin rides up to its walls. The site is the normal Arabo-African scene, a strip of sulphur-yellow sand with a deep blue dome above and a foreground of indigo-coloured sea; behind it lies the country, a reeking desert of loose white sand and brown clay, thinly scattered with thorny shrub and tree. The buildings are a dozen large houses of mud and coralline rubble painfully whitewashed. There are six mosques――green little battlemented things with the Wahhali dwarf tower by way of minaret, and two hundred huts of dingy palm-leaf.

The population of fifteen thousand souls has not a good name――Zayla boasting or vanity and Kurayeh pride is a proverb. They are managed by forty Turkish soldiers under a Somali Governor, the Hajj Shermarkuy, meaning “one who sees no harm.” The tall old man was a brave in his youth; he could manage four spears, and his sword-cut was known. He always befriended English travellers.

The only thing in favour of Zayla is its cheapness. A family of six persons can live well on £30 per annum. Being poor, the people are idle, and the hateful “Inshalla bukra”――“To-morrow if Allah pleases”――and the Arab “tenha paciencia,” “amanha,” and “espere um pouco” is the rule.

I was delayed twenty-seven days whilst a route was debated upon, mules were sent for, camels were bought, and an abban, or protector-guide, was secured. Hereabouts no stranger could travel without such a patron, who was paid to defend his client’s life and property. Practically he took his money and ran away.

On the evening of November 27th, 1864, the caravan was ready. It consisted of five camels laden with provisions, cooking-pots, ammunition, and our money――that is to say, beads, coarse tobacco, American sheeting, Indian cotton, and indigo-dyed stuffs. The escort was formed by the two policemen, the “End of Time,” and Yusuf, a one-eyed lad from Zayla, with the guide and his tail of three followers. My men were the pink of Somali fashion. They had stained their hair of a light straw colour by plastering it with ashes; they had teased it till it stood up a full foot, and they had mutually spirted upon their wigs melted tallow, making their heads look like giant cauliflowers that contrasted curiously with the bistre-coloured skins. Their tobes (togas) were dazzlingly white, with borders dazzlingly red. Outside the dress was strapped a horn-hilted two-edged dagger, long and heavy; their shields of rhinoceros hide were brand new, and their two spears poised upon the right shoulder were freshly scraped and oiled, and blackened and polished. They had added my spare rifle and guns to the camel loads――the things were well enough in Aden, but in Somali we would deride such strange, unmanly weapons. They balanced themselves upon dwarf Abyssinian saddles, extending the leg and raising the heel like the _haute école_ of Louis XIV. The stirrup was an iron ring admitting only the big toe, and worse than that of the Sertanejo.