Volume I Part 6 (1/2)
While sitting in Ibn Dirra's house, we saw an instance of Ibn Ras.h.i.+d's paternal government, and the first sign of Wahhabism. The midday prayer was called from the roof of the mosque close by, for there is no minaret in Jof, but for some time n.o.body seemed inclined to move, taking our visit as an excuse. Then an old man with a sour face began lecturing the younger ones, and telling them to get up and go to pray, and finding precept of no avail, at last gave them the example. Still the main body of the guests sat on, till suddenly up jumped the two young soldiers who had come with us, and shouting ”k.u.m, k.u.m,” get up, get up, set to with the flats of their swords on the rest and so drove them to the mosque, all but our host, whose position as such made him sacred from a.s.sault.
It is very evident that religion is not appreciated here, and except the sour looking old man n.o.body seemed to take the praying seriously, for the soldiers when they had done their duty of driving in the others, came back without ceremony from the mosque. The outward show of religion does not seem natural among the Arabs.
Another sword dance to-night, and another carouse on lemonade.
_January_ 8.-A cloudy, almost foggy morning, and a shower of rain. We wished Dowa.s.s and his soldiers good-bye, and they really seemed sorry to part with us. They are extraordinarily good-tempered, honest people, and have treated us with great kindness. Dowa.s.s's last attention to me was the present of an enormous treng as big as a large cocoanut. The trengs are sour not sweet lemons, but they have a rind an inch thick, sweet enough to be eaten though very woolly.
Meskakeh, where we have come to-day, is about twenty miles from Jof, and there is a well-beaten track between the two places. We were a rather numerous party, as several Jofi came with us for company, and we have Areybi ibn Ark, Na.s.sr's son, and another Ark, a cousin of his, and a man with a gun who is by way of going on with us to Hal. All the party but ourselves were on foot, for the Jofi never ride, having neither horses nor camels nor even donkeys. One of the men had with him an ostrich eggsh.e.l.l slung in a sort of network, and used like a gourd to hold water. He told me that ostriches are common in the Nefd, which is now close by. The scenery all the way was fantastic, sometimes picturesque. First we crossed the punchbowl of Jof to the other side, pa.s.sing several ruined farms, the ground absolutely barren, and the lowest part of it covered with salt. The whole of this depression is but a mile across. Then our road rose suddenly a hundred feet up a steep bank of sand, and then again a hundred and sixty feet over some stony ridges, descending again to cross a subbkha with a fringe of tamarisks just now in flower, then tracts of fine ironstone gravel, undistinguishable from sheep's droppings. About two hours from Jof is a large water-hole, which the Jofi call a spring, the water about eight feet below ground. In the wadys where water had flowed (for it rained here about a month ago), there were bright green bulbous plants with crocus flowers, giving a false look of fertility. In other places there were curious mushroom rocks of pink sandstone topped with iron, and in the distance northwards several fine ma.s.ses of hill, Jebel Hammamiyeh or the pigeon mountains being the most remarkable. These may have been a thousand feet higher than Jof. Far beyond, to the north-east and east, there ran a level line of horizon at about an equal height, the edge of the Hamad, for all the country we have been crossing is within the area of the ancient sea, which, we suppose, must have included the Wady Sirhan, Jof and Meskakeh.
On one of the rocks I noticed an inscription, or rather pictures of camels and horses, cut on a flat surface about five feet across. We could not, however, under the circ.u.mstances, copy it.
Meskakeh, though not the seat of Johar's government, is a larger town than Jof-seven hundred houses they say, and palm gardens at least twice as extensive as the other's. The position of the two towns is much the same, a broad hollow surrounded by cliffs of sandstone, but the Meskakeh basin is less regular, and is broken up with sandhills and outlying tells of rock. Meskakeh, like Jof, has an ancient citadel perched on a cliff about a hundred feet high, and dominating the town. The town itself is irregularly built, and has no continuous wall round its gardens. There are many detached gardens and groups of houses, and these have not been ruined as those of Jof have been by recent wars. Altogether, it has an exceedingly flouris.h.i.+ng look, not an acre of irrigable land left unplanted. Everything is neat and clean, the walls fresh battlemented, and every house trim as if newly built. The little square plots of barley are surrounded each by its hedge of wattled palm branches, and the streets and lanes are scrupulously tidy. Through these we rode without stopping, and on two miles beyond, to Na.s.sr's farm. We are now in the bosom of the Ibn Ark family, after all no myth, but a hospitable reality, receiving us with open arms, as if they had been expecting us every day for the last hundred years. They know the Ibn Ark ballad and Mohammed's genealogy far better than he knows it himself, so for the time at least we may hope to be in clover, and if after all we get no further, we may feel that we have travelled not quite in vain.
CHAPTER VII.
”And Leah was tender eyed but Rachel was beautiful.”-BOOK OF GENESIS.
The Ibn Arks of Jof-Mohammed contracts a matrimonial alliance-Leah and Rachel.-We cheapen the bride's dower-A negro governor and his suite-A thunder-storm.
WE stayed three days with Na.s.sr and his sons, and his sons' wives and their children, in their quiet farm house. It was a rest which we much needed, and proved besides to be an interesting experience, and an excellent opportunity of learning more of Arab domestic life than we had done on our previous journeys. Not that the Ibn Arks of Meskakeh are in themselves of any particular interest. Like their relations of Tudmur, they have been too long settled down as mere townspeople, marrying the daughters of the land, and adopting many of the sordid town notions, but they were honest and kind-hearted, and the traditions of their origin, still religiously preserved, cast an occasional gleam of something like romance on their otherwise matter of fact lives. Na.s.sr, the best of the elder generation, resembled some small Scottish laird, poor and penurious, but aware of having better blood in his veins than his neighbours-one whose thought, every day in the year but one, is of how to save sixpence, but who on that one day shows himself to be a gentleman, and the head of a house. His sons were quiet, modest, and unpretending, and, like most young Arabs, more romantically inclined than their father.
They even had a certain appreciation of chivalrous ideas; especially Turki, the elder, in whom the Bedouin blood and Bedouin traditions predominated almost to the exclusion of commercial instincts, while in his brother Areybi, these latter more than counterbalanced the former.
We liked both the brothers, of course preferring Turki, with whom Wilfrid made great friends.
Mohammed is less distantly related to these people than I had supposed.
His ancestor, Ali ibn Ark, was one of the three brothers who, in consequence of a blood feud, or, as Wilfrid thinks more likely, to escape the Wahhabi tyranny of a hundred years ago, left Aared in Nejd, and came north as far as Tudmur, where Ali married and remained. Another brother, Abd el-Kader ibn Ark, had stopped at Jof, settled there, and became Na.s.sr's grandfather. As to the third, Mutlakh, the descendants of the two former know nothing of his fate, except that, liking neither Tudmur nor Jof he returned towards Nejd. Some vague report of his death reached them, but n.o.body can tell when or how he died. Na.s.sr came from Jof to Meskakeh not many years ago.
Na.s.sr is now the head of the family, at least of that branch of it which inhabits the Meskakeh oasis. But there lives in an adjoining house to his, his first cousin, Jazi ibn Ark, brother to our friend Merzuga, and father to two pretty daughters. These, with a few other relations, make up a pleasant little family party, all living in their outlying farm together.
Of course our first thought on coming amongst them was for a wife for Mohammed, at whose request I took an early opportunity of making acquaintance with the women of the family. I found them all very friendly and amiable, and some of them intelligent. Most of the younger ones were good looking. The most important person in the harim was Na.s.sr's wife, a little old lady named Shemma (candle), thin and wizened, and wrinkled, with long grey locks, and the weak eyes of extreme old age; and, though she can have been hardly more than sixty, she seemed to be completely worn out. She was the mother of Turki and Areybi; and I had heard from Mohammed that Na.s.sr had never taken another wife but her. In this, however, he was mistaken, for on my very first visit, she called in a younger wife from the adjoining room, and introduced her at once to me.
The second wife came in with two little boys of two and three years old, the eldest of whom (for they all have extraordinary names) is called Mattrak, ”stick;” in spite of which he seemed an amiable, good-tempered child. In this he resembled his mother, whose respectful manner towards her elder, Shemma, impressed me favourably; she had, besides, a really beautiful face. The little boy, Mattrak, I recognised as a boy I had seen in the morning with old Na.s.sr in our garden, and supposed to be his grandson. Na.s.sr was doing his best to spoil the child, after the fas.h.i.+on of old men among the Arabs. I had then given Mattrak a little red frock, one I had bought for Sotamm's boy, Mansur, when we thought we were going to the Roala, and in this the child was now strutting about, showing off his finery to two very pretty little girls, his sisters. These two ran in and out during my visit, helping to bring bowls of dates, and to eat the dates when brought. Next appeared Turki's two wives, a pretty one and a plain one, and Areybi's one wife, pretty, and lately married. All these seemed to be on better terms with one another than is usually the case among mixed wives and daughters-in-law. They were extremely anxious to please me, and I, of course, did my best to satisfy their hospitable wishes about eating. They offered me dates of countless kinds,-dry ones and sticky ones, sweet and less sweet, long dried ones, and newer ones, a ma.s.s of pulp; it was impossible for one person to do justice to them all.
Shemma treated all the young people with the air of one in authority, though her tone with them was kind. She, however, spoke little, while the others talked incessantly and asked all sorts of questions, requiring more knowledge of Arabic than I possessed to answer. In the middle of the visit, Nazzch, Na.s.sr's married daughter, own sister to Turki and Areybi, arrived with her daughter, and an immense bowl of dates. She had walked all the way from the town of Meskakeh, about three miles, carrying this child, a fat heavy creature of four, as well as the dates, and came in, panting and laughing, to see me. She was pleasant and lively, very like her brother Turki in face, that is to say, good-tempered rather than good-looking. Any one of these young ladies, seen on my first visit, might have done for Mohammed's project of marriage, but, unfortunately, they were all either married or too young. I asked if there were no young ladies already ”out,” and was told that there were none in Na.s.sr's house, but that his cousin Jazi had two grown-up daughters, not yet married; so I held my peace till there should be an opportunity of seeing them.
Mohammed, in the meantime, had already begun to make inquiries on his own account, and the first day of our visit was not over before he came to me with a wonderful account of these very daughters of Jazi. There were three of them, he declared, and all more beautiful each than the others, Asr (afternoon), Hamu and Muttra-the first two unfortunately betrothed already, but Muttra still obtainable. I could see that already he was terribly in love, for with the Arabs, a very little goes a long way; and never being allowed to see young ladies, they fall in love merely through talking about them. He was very pressing that I should lose no time about making my visit to their mother, and seemed to think that I had been wasting my time sadly on the married cousin. Mohammed has all along declared that he must be guided by my opinion. I shall know, he pretends, at once, not only whether Muttra is pretty, but whether good-tempered, likely to make a good wife. He had been calculating, he said, and thought forty pounds would be asked as her dower. It is a great deal to be sure, but then she was really ”asil,” and the occasion was a unique one-a daughter of Jazi!-a niece of Merzuga!-a girl of such excellent family!-an Ibn Ark! and Ibn Arks were not to be had every day!-forty pounds would hardly be too much. He trusted all to my judgment-I had so much discernment, and had seen the wives and daughters of all the anazeh Sheykhs; I should know what was what, and should not make a mistake. Still, he would like Abdallah to go with me, just to spy out things. Abdallah, as a relation, might be admitted to the door on such an occasion, though he, Mohammed, of course could not; he might, perhaps, even be allowed to see the girl, as it were, by accident. With us, the Ibn Arks, the wives and daughters are always veiled, a custom we brought with us from Nejd, for we are not like the Bedouins; yet on so important an occasion as this, of arranging a marriage, a man of a certain age, a dependant, or a poor relation, is sometimes permitted to see and report. I promised that I would do all I could to expedite the matter.
Accordingly, the next day Turki was sent for, and a word dropped to him of the matter in hand, and he was forthwith dispatched to announce my visit to the mother of the daughters of Jazi-Mohammed explaining, that it was etiquette that the mother should be made acquainted with the object of my visit, though not necessarily the daughters. Then we went to Jazi's house, Turki, Abdallah, and I.
Jazi's house is close to Na.s.sr's, only the garden wall dividing them, and is still smaller than his, a poor place, I thought, to which to come for a princess; but in Arabia one must never judge by externals. At the door, among several women, stood Saad, Jazi's eldest son, who showed us through the courtyard to an inner room, absolutely dark, except for what light might come in at the doorway. It is in Arabia that the expression ”to darken one's door,” must have been invented, for windows there are none in any of the smaller houses. There was a smell of goats about the place, and it looked more like a stable than a parlour for reception. At first I could see nothing, but I could hear Saad, who had plunged into the darkness, shaking something in a corner, and as my eyes got accustomed to the twilight, this proved to be a young lady, one of the three that I had come to visit. It was Asr the second, a great, good-looking girl, very like her cousin Areybi, with his short aquiline nose and dark eyes. She came out to the light with a great show of shyness and confusion, hiding her face in her hands, and turning away even from me; nor would she answer anything to my attempts at conversation. Then, all of a sudden, she broke away from us, and rushed across the yard to another little den, where we found her with her mother and her sister Muttra. I hardly knew what to make of all this, as besides the shyness, I thought I could see that Asr really meant to be rude, and the polite manners of her mother Haliyeh and her little sister Muttra confirmed me in this idea. I liked Muttra's face at once; she has a particularly open, honest look, staring straight at one with her great dark eyes like a fawn, and she has, too, a very bright fresh colour, and a pleasant cheerful voice. I paid, then, little attention to Asr's rudeness, and asked the little girl to walk with me round their garden, which she did, showing me the few things there were to be seen, and explaining about the well, and the way they drew the water. The garden, besides the palm trees, contained figs, apricots, and vines, and there was a little plot of green barley, on which some kids were grazing.
Muttra told me that in summer they live on fruit, but that they never preserve the apricots or figs, only the dates. I noticed several young palm trees, always a sign of prosperity. The well was about ten feet square at the top, and carefully faced with stone, the water being only a few feet below the surface of the ground. Water, she told me, could be found anywhere at Meskakeh by digging, and always at the same depth. I was pleased with the intelligence Muttra showed in this conversation, and pleased with her pretty ways and honest face, and decided in my own mind without difficulty that Mohammed would be most fortunate if he obtained her in marriage. It was promising, too, for their future happiness, to remark that Haliyeh, the mother, seemed to be a sensible woman; only I could not understand the strange behaviour of the elder sister Asr.
Abdallah, in the meanwhile, standing at the door, had made his notes, and come to much the same conclusion as myself; so we returned with an excellent report to give to the impatient suitor waiting outside.
Mohammed's eagerness was now very nearly spoiling the negotiation, for he at once began to talk of his intended marriage; and the same thing happened to him in consequence, which happened long ago to Jacob, the son of Isaac. Jazi, imitating the conduct of Laban, and counting upon his cousin's anxiety to be married, first of all increased the dower from forty pounds to sixty, and then endeavoured to subst.i.tute Leah for Rachel, the ill-tempered Asr for the pretty Muttra.
This was a severe blow to Mohammed's hopes, and a general council was called of all the family to discuss it and decide. The council met in our tent, Wilfrid presiding; on one side sat Mohammed, with Na.s.sr as head of the house; on the other, Jazi and Saad, representing the bride, while between them, a little shrivelled man knelt humbly on his knees, who was no member of the family, but, we afterwards learned, a professional go-between. Outside, the friends and more distant relations a.s.sembled, Abdallah and Ibrahim Kasir, and half a dozen of the Ibn Arks. These began by sitting at a respectful distance, but as the discussion warmed, edged closer and closer in, till every one of them had delivered himself of an opinion.
Mohammed himself was quite in a flutter, and very pale; and Wilfrid conducted his case for him. It would be too long a story to mention all the dispute, which sometimes was so warmly pressed, that negotiations seemed on the point of being broken off. Jazi contended that it was impossible he should give his younger daughter, while the elder ones remained unmarried. ”Hamu, it was true, was engaged, and of her there was no question, but Asr, though engaged too, was really free; Jeruan, the shock-headed son of Merzuga, to whom she was betrothed, was not the husband for her. He was an imbecile, and Asr would never marry him. If a girl declares that she will not marry her betrothed, she is not engaged, and has still to seek a husband she likes. But this would not do. We cited the instance of Jedaan's marriage with an engaged girl, and the unfortunate sequel, as proving that Jeruan's consent was necessary for Asr, and Mohammed chimed in, ”Ya ibn ammi, ya Jazi, O Jazi! O son of my uncle how could I do this thing, and sin against my cousin? How could I take his bride? Surely this would be a shame to us all.” In fine, we insisted that Muttra it should be or n.o.body, and Asr's claim was withdrawn. Still it was pleaded, Muttra was but a child, hardly fifteen, and unfit for so great a journey as that to Tudmur. Where indeed was Tudmur? who of all the Jofi had ever been so far? Mohammed, however, replied that if youth were an obstacle, a year or two would mend that.
He was content to wait for a year, or two, or even for three years, if need were. He was an Ibn Ark, and trained to patience. As to Tudmur, it was far, but had we not just come thence, and could we not go back?